Chelson Meadow now has its own falcon and falconer

A project to reduce the number of seagulls at a Devon landfill site appears to be working.

Three years ago seagulls were a significant problem at the Chelson Meadow landfill site in Plymouth.

Now falcons are being used to get rid of the seagulls, who frighten the birds away without harming them, and gull numbers have reduced dramatically.

Other local authorities around the country are now considering using the idea.

Specialist firms

According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the loss of cliff-top breeding sites to coastal development and depleted fish stocks at sea are behind the growing inland migration of gulls.

Rubbish tips are a magnet for the gulls, some of whom, according to the RSPB, can live inland without ever seeing the sea during the course of their lifetimes.

Councils are increasingly turning to specialist firms to provide bird-of-prey handlers.

There are only a handful of such companies in Britain and business is growing.

Main problem

NBC Environmental Services, based in Norfolk, supplies Plymouth City Council with its falcons and falconer.

The company breeds and trains specialised peregrine falcons and hawks to deter gulls and pigeons.

But the RSPB says that although bird-scaring using birds of prey has been in use - chiefly by the RAF and Navy - for the past 20 years, it tends to move the birds around but ultimately does not control them.

The charity argues that moving the gulls off landfill sites does not tackle the main problem, namely the loss of their natural habitat and food supply.