We are by now familiar with the menace from the skies that seagulls can present to people who are walking about with a sandwich or a bag of chips; and it seems the problem is only intensifying if new research from the UK is anything to go by.

Seagull researchers found that not only are seagulls happy to pick off human food, they are increasingly likely to go for them if they see a human eat them first! It suggests that the birds are learning to monitor human behaviour and once they see something is edible, they go for it.

So who better to tell Ivan what is going on with the gulls than Niall Hatch of Bird Watch Ireland?