Invasion of the bread-snatchers

Little Toller Books, in Dorset, aims to publish old and new writing on nature by the very best writers and artists, in books of the highest quality at affordable prices. This offering, neat enough to fit an overcoat pocket, ticks every box.

Its author, Tim Dee, co-editor of The Poetry of Birds, has been a BBC natural history radio producer, whose first job was in bird conservation. Born and bred in Bristol, notable for its gull population, he has been a dedicated birdwatcher from boyhood. He thus brings expertise as well as broad engagement to his subject. Accordingly, Landfill, like its principal subject, the gulls we see in Britain, ranges far and wide. It is a crafted work of literature, which draws on poems, plays, novels, films and philosophy to explore what ‘gull-life and gulling-life have done to our minds’. To that end, Dee has interviewed leading ‘gullers’, beginning with Bristol-based Peter Rock, the first person in Britain to study urban gulls.

The key point is that many gulls once unknown inland, because of human interaction, are no longer ‘seagulls’. Humans have changed the seas and them. Easy pickings from fishing and other boats began it, but technology diminished this source, and urbanisation and consumerism has driven them ashore.

A watershed moment was the 1956 Clean Air Act, which stopped waste-burning and coincided with the end of random fish-gutting. Discarded food, progressively increased by supermarkets and fast-food outlets, was taken to rubbish dumps and landfill sites. Now recycling technology has brought a further tidying up. Dumps and landfill are being transformed into ‘country parks’. Gulls have been forced into even closer contact with humans, as have scarp-searching pigeons and sparrows, and have become a nuisance. Even David Cameron, when prime minister, had his holiday sandwich snatched and called for a ‘big conversation’ on the problem.