Seagulls have been seen feasting on pigeons and rats since the Covid lockdown

Cannibal seagulls that kill and eat other birds while they are still alive have been seen feasting on pigeons and rats since the Covid lockdown, residents claim.

Bloodthirsty "murder gulls" have been spotted attacking and pecking to death helpless pigeons along London canals - a phenomenon neighbours said has increased since the start of the pandemic.

Vicious gangs of the killer gulls roamed the waterways of the capital searching for other sources of food due to reduced human activity, devouring rival birds in broad daylight.

Now they stalk flocks of pigeons, pick off the weakest members and knock them out with a peck to the head before carrying them off to start eating their flesh.

Some of the gulls even pull rats from the water and eat the rodents, residents who live near the canals in London said.

Tourists taking to the water were left traumatised by one especially brutal killing in which a pigeon escaped and was dragged back into the slaughter by its attacker.

One resident on the canal saw a chick killed by a gull and left dumped on a barge skylight.

Video footage of one such incident showed a gull pounce on a pigeon by the side of a canal in Lisson Grove, north London, on Tuesday.

While the hungry gull pecked at the torso of its prey, the pigeon flapped its wings in a desperate bid to get away from the attack.

One man who lives on moorings near where the killing took place said: "We call them murder gulls, apparently it started in lockdown when they couldn't get any food.

"They go amongst the pigeons and pick off the stupidest ones and eat them alive, it's awful. I've even seen them get hold of rats."

During the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, gulls in Rome were also seen "returning" to their natural role as predators - hunting down rats, pigeons and other smaller birds as the lack of humans on the streets meant there were no food scraps on the ground.

The Italian capital had only been in lockdown for two months when zoologists saw gulls catching pigeons and rats as well as swallows, black birds and fish from the Tiber river.

Eating pigeons and rats is not a new dietary choice for the seagulls, but they usually peck at dead animals in the form of roadkill, rather than launching their own attacks.