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The UK Bird Atlas

Bridled Tern (Onychoprion anaethetus)Where and when to see it in the UK

Scarce migrant · reporting peaks June · Skimmers, Noddies, Terns, and Gulls · BOU category A

Records to 2026-08-16 · build 2026-08-31

Bridled Tern (Onychoprion anaethetus)
peterichman, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Too few records to rate squares by month. Each marked square has at least one record; the table below gives the count and years.

Bridled Tern: relative reporting rate by 10 km square, September

Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (grid squares, place names from OS Open Names). Northern Ireland place names: OSNI Open Data, OGL v3.0. County and country boundaries: Office for National Statistics, Open Government Licence v3.0. Coastline: Natural Earth. Bird records from the data partners listed here.

Bridled Tern has been recorded in 8 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (0%) in records to 2026. Scarce migrant in the UK. Reporting peaks in June.

Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN Red List, LC)
View on the IUCN Red List

Records by 10 km square

SquareWhereRecordsYearsVerified
NU20Northumberland, England792024unverified
SH43Gwynedd, Wales62023unverified
NU23Northumberland, England532012 to 2017unverified
NT68East Lothian, Scotland22014unverified
HZ27Shetland Islands, Scotland12014unverified
NZ46South Tyneside, England12014unverified
NZ29Northumberland, England122013unverified
NZ52Redcar and Cleveland, England12013unverified

Spotted an error in a square? Report it and it goes into the review queue. Read the methodology for how classes, flags and sensitive-species rules work. Data to 2026.