The Town That Trained Seagulls to Queue

In the sleepy seaside town of Cleaves-on-Sea, population just under 9,000, an unexpected local initiative has caught national attention. This isn't about green energy, improved public transport or a cultural renaissance. It's about seagulls. Specifically, it's about teaching them to queue.

Yes, queue.

For the past five years, residents of Cleaves-on-Sea have been engaged in an unusual project: encouraging the local seagull population to adopt British queuing etiquette. It began as a joke, then became a community experiment, and now, locals swear by its success.

A Bird-Brained Idea?

The initiative started with Jim Roscoe, a retired postman and lifelong resident. Known affectionately as “Postie Jim,” he spent most of his days feeding birds from the same bench near the promenade.

“I was sick of them diving at tourists,” Jim says. “They’d nick chips, ice cream, even once a baby’s dummy. It wasn’t right.”

So Jim began a simple experiment. He fed only those gulls who remained at a respectful distance. He even placed markers—sticks at first, then painted lines—to show where the birds should stand.

“It was daft at first,” he admits. “But over time, I noticed they started getting the message. The ones who waited got fed. The greedy ones missed out.”

Word spread. Locals began helping. Yellow lines appeared across the promenade. Signs read, “Queue Here for Chips – Gulls Welcome.” Children took turns policing the queue with toy whistles. One local café even began offering “queue treats” to well-behaved birds.

Seagull Psychology?

While some might dismiss it as folklore, Dr. Sarah Densmore, an animal behaviourist from the University of Exeter, says there may be some truth to it.

“Gulls are highly intelligent and opportunistic. They’re capable of pattern recognition and basic learning,” she explains. “If a community consistently rewards certain behaviours, even wild animals may adapt. Especially ones as socially driven as gulls.”

Dr. Densmore visited Cleaves-on-Sea last summer and confirmed that gulls were, unusually, standing in a loose but visible line near key food spots.

“There was order. I won’t call it a queue in the British sense, but something resembling it. In gull terms, that's remarkable.”

Tourists and Tradition

Local businesses have embraced the fame. The Gull & Chips café now sells commemorative mugs with a queue of cartoon birds, and a new mural was unveiled in April showing seagulls politely queuing for ice cream. Tourists flock to see the spectacle, hoping to witness this bizarre display of coastal civility.

“It’s bonkers, but it works,” says Sharon Whitby, who runs the town’s small tourism board. “We’re famous for it now. Better this than a pier ghost story.”

There are, of course, doubters. Some say the gulls are just waiting due to food scarcity, or that the perceived queuing is more coincidence than learning. But for Cleaves-on-Sea, the truth doesn’t matter so much as the charm of the story.

“If you’ve lived here long enough, you see them change,” says Jim, tossing a chip to a waiting bird. “They’re like us. They just needed a bit of encouragement to mind their manners.”

And in a country known for orderly queues, perhaps it’s only fitting that even the wildlife learns to fall in line.