SEAGULLS dive-bombed a firefighter trying to rescue their stranded chick which fell out of its nest and into roof guttering.Mark Moule under attack from one of the parents of the seagull chick he was trying to rescue after it fell from the nest.

The protective parental instinct kicked in with a vengeance when rescuers were dispatched to the office building in Church Street, Kidderminster, last Thursday morning.

RSPCA inspector Neil Tysall was first on the scene after workers on the opposite side of the street noticed the stricken youngster.

"The seagulls were nesting on the top of the chimney stack and this one chick had fallen out, slipped down the roof and was on the guttering," he said.

"It was trying to climb up back towards the nest and sliding back down again."

If the two-week-old chick had fallen off the three-storey building "it would have been curtains", Mr Tysall added.

He called the fire brigade when he was unable to rescue the chick from inside the building - exposing firefighter Mark Moule to the wrath of the adult birds as he climbed a ladder.

"They'll fly at you, they'll defecate on you in a bid to try and keep you away," said Mr Tysall.

"I think they were quite exhausted by this point but they did have a go but they didn't make any contact."

It proved too difficult to reunite the chick with its parents and it was taken to a Staffordshire rescue centre where it will be reared and then released back into the wild.