Robin Dadson, of Churchfields, Dartmouth, writes: Thank goodness Dartmouth Town Council has rejected a request by the Dartmouth Business Improvement District to part-fund the cost of ­bringing in birds of prey to help control the seagulls that frequent the area. It would appear that the BID team has been advised that ­flying birds of prey for 10 ­consecutive days, and 26 other flies during the winter months, would deter the gulls. While I am no expert, I can confirm with some confidence that Dartmouth already appears to have its own resident population of birds of prey, namely buzzards, which I quite ­frequently see from my living room window gliding over the fields around Jawbones Hill and also above the line of Victoria Road. On occasion, as these birds hang high above on the thermals, a loud commotion can be heard from large numbers of gulls as they attempt to drive them off. On one occasion I witnessed as many as five individual buzzards, which I assume were parent birds and their young, circling above a swarm of gulls, which, while irate and extremely noisy, showed little sign of departing. The photograph of a peregrine falcon that accompanied your report on this matter was of particular interest, as I understand this bird is somewhat smaller than a buzzard, which is among our larger ­resident birds of prey. Surely the conclusion must be that a healthy local population of one of Britain's largest hawks, which is on standby 365 days a year, does little to ­contain the problem, so would their hired cousins, with us for just 36 days, prove more effective? I can only deduce that ­someone within Dartmouth Town Council has done a bit of homework.