Urban gulls adapt foraging schedule to human-activity patterns.

Numerous animals are able to adapt to temporal patterns in natural food availability, but whether species living in relatively novel environments such as cities can adapt to anthropogenic activity cycles is less well understood. We aimed to assess the extent to which urban gulls have adapted their foraging schedule to anthropogenic food source fluctuations related to human activity by combining field observations at three distinct urban feeding grounds (park, school and waste centre) with global positioning system (GPS) tracking data of gulls visiting similar types of feeding grounds throughout the same city. We found that the birds' foraging patterns closely matched the timing of school breaks and the opening and closing times of the waste centre, but gull activity in the park appeared to correspond to the availability of natural food sources. Overall, this suggests that gulls may have the behavioural flexibility to adapt their foraging behaviour to human time schedules when beneficial and that this trait could potentially enable them to thrive in cities.

Essential oils as tick repellents on clothing.

Essential oils show promise as natural alternatives to synthetic tick repellents, but few studies have investigated their repellent efficacy in vivo or under field conditions. Here, blanket-drags and standardised walks were employed to evaluate tick acquisition by 1 m2 cotton blankets or cotton trousers, respectively, in woodland edge habitats of known high tick abundance. Blankets and trousers had been treated with one of 5% oregano, rosemary, spearmint or thyme oils, 20% DEET (N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide) (positive control) or ethanol excipient-only (negative control). The number of ticks present on the blankets or trousers differed significantly between treatments: spearmint oil treatments resulted in significantly fewer ticks than the negative controls for both blankets and trousers and significantly fewer ticks were present on the oregano oil treated blankets. For ticks that did attach to the trousers, the rate of drop off within 3 min was significantly higher for trousers treated with spearmint oil or thyme oil than ethanol, oregano oil and rosemary oil. No reduction in repellence was detected over a 24 h period between treatment and testing. The results suggest that 5% oregano and spearmint oils exhibit potential as natural clothing repellents, with an effective equivalence to 20% DEET.