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Firemen attend Southdown Road, Weymouth, to rescue the seagull

FIREFIGHTERS used their hydraulic platform to rescue a trapped seagull.

A fire crew went to Southdown Road, Weymouth, after the RSPCA reported a seagull had impaled itself on a spike.

Three firemen visited the house to remove the bird using an aerial ladder platform and the gull was taken away in a cat box to be nursed back to health.

Roy Pinder, duty officer at Weymouth Fire Station, was the first fireman at the scene.

He said: "We would much rather rescue the bird than rescue someone attempting to rescue it."

Mr Pinder waited at the house for the vehicle with assistance to arrive to ensure that no one attempted to save the bird.

Neighbour, Raymond Clothier, 76, went to investigate after his wife spotted lights from the fire engines passing their house. To his surprise there were no flames but firemen informed him a seagull chick had become stuck on a neighbour's roof.

He said: "I thought there's no smoke so there's no fire, and I wondered what the problem was.

"The firemen told me a bird was caught by the spikes designed to keep nesting birds away."

Another neighbour took the seagull, which had caught its wing on the spike to RSPB volunteer Barbara Foggon, who looks after sick and injured birds.

She said she expects to release the herring gull at Radipole Lake within the next few weeks.

Mrs Foggon, 64, looks after around 100 young seagulls every year and is attending to 50 in her garden in Wyke Regis.

She said: "I can't praise the firemen enough.

"If people have to protect their property against nesting seagulls I would recommend the wired cages and not the spikes.

"Seagulls return to the same spot every year and will still try to nest between the spikes."

10:11am Tuesday 15th July 2008

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