DATE: Friday, May 2, 1997                   TAG: 9705020602

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD 

        STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   53 lines

SEAGULLS ARE A PECK OF TROUBLE AT BALLPARK

It's not quite an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, but there is a mystery unfolding at Harbor Park.

Why are seagulls pecking holes in the ballpark's tarp? And more importantly, how can they be stopped?

``We don't know what they're looking for,'' said Ken Magner, head groundskeeper for Harbor Park. ``But they're shredding it. We can't spend the night chasing them away. Besides, they don't move until you're right on top of them.''

Dave Rosenfield, general manager of the Norfolk Tides with 30 years in the baseball business, described it as ``one of the weird things of all time.''

The tarp, designed to protect the infield from rain, is doing no such thing. The holes are so large that if the tarp is down overnight and it rains, Magner says, a walk across it the next morning is like ``walking on a waterbed.''

Although Harbor Park is in its fifth year alongside the Elizabeth River, this is the first year that the gulls have pecked at the tarp.

Magner says he has thought of sprinkling peppercorn on the tarp, but Louise Hill, curator of the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk, doubts that would work.

``I don't think it would bother the birds,'' said Hill. ``Seagulls will eat just about anything.''

Dr. Bob Rose, a biology professor at Old Dominion University who teaches courses on mammals and birds, doesn't think there is anything under the tarp the gulls might crave, pointing out that they are scavengers by nature and don't typically farm the earth for food.

``Pecking is what seagulls do, of course,'' he said, ``and they like flat, open spaces. That's why you see them at parking lots and on air strips.''

Hill's guess is that the birds find bugs on or under the tarp, or that they've discovered that the tarp makes for ``good nesting material.'' She warns that as migratory birds, seagulls are federally controlled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

``You can't disturb their nesting spots and you can't shoot them,'' said Hill. ``You can't even legally keep a feather found on the ground.''

So, for now, Magner and his crew will continue acting as makeshift tailors.

``All we can do is keep patching it at this point,'' Magner said. ``The problem is, they've started to pick the patches off.

``It costs $5,000 to replace that tarp. We could go with a thicker tarp, but if it's twice as thick, then it's also twice as heavy to pull off. And it costs twice as much.'' ILLUSTRATION: L. TODD SPENCER

Beaks are causing leaks in the infield tarp at Harbor Park. Seagulls

have pecked many holes in the protective covering.

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