THEY are noisy, they can be annoying, at times they can fly at your food and at the moment they seem to be everywhere.

There are lots of young seagulls around at this time of year so people do get a bit annoyed – understandably so when they are on your roof every morning waking you up at silly o’clock on your day off.

It has been reported that crafty seagulls have developed a cunning strategy to steal our lunches on Brighton beach.

There have been comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock’s horror film The Birds as the gulls become “smarter and more brazen” than ever before.

But in Hitchcock’s movie The Birds the winged creatures are not stealing Tippi Hedren’s chips – they scratch at her face and were out to attack people.

It’s not quite that bad yet.

There have been more stories and pictures of seagulls swallowing rats. But animals eating other animals is just nature.

Seagull expert Peter Rock said the most common complaint about seagulls is the noise and he rightly points out that the problems are of our own making.

Leaving bags of litter out does attract gulls. But they can attract foxes and rats too. These animals are simply trying to survive.

Lots of people are getting carried away with this talk of a cull but seagulls are part of our history on the coast.

If you make the mistake of moving away from the seaside, hearing them feels like coming home.

And our great football club in Brighton and Hove has the Seagulls as its nickname.

So We need to be careful about what we wish for. Our tourists expect to see seagulls when they come to the Sussex coast. Brighton beach would be a strange place indeed without them. And it would often be a much dirtier and smellier place as the gulls do a great job in helping our litter pickers to clear the rubbish.