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The UK Bird Atlas

Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla)Where and when to see it in the UK

Resident · reporting peaks June to August · Skimmers, Noddies, Terns, and Gulls · BOU category AF

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

Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla)
Yathin S Krishnappa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Kittiwake: 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.

Kittiwake has been recorded in 1,525 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (51%) in records to 2026. Resident in the UK. Its strongest squares are in Scotland, England and Wales. Reporting peaks in June to August.

Conservation status: Vulnerable (IUCN Red List, VU)
View on the IUCN Red List
Relative to this species' best squares (how classes are calculated)
Very high
33% or more of visits
High
11% to 33%
Moderate
3% to 11%
Low
under 3%
Surveyed, not recorded
at least 20 qualifying visits, no record
Insufficient records
too few visits to say
Lighter fill
Few visits, lower confidence
Small dot
Occasional: a single record, or out of season

Seasonality

Reporting rate by month, relative to the peak month
MonthRelative to peakShare of visitsTypical class
January 25%1%Low
February 25%1%Low
March 32%2%Low
April 48%3%Very high
May 72%4%Very high
June 93%5%Very high
July 100%6%Very high
August 90%5%Very high
September 67%4%Very high
October 52%3%Moderate
November 44%3%Low
December 29%2%Very high

Squares with the highest reporting rate in June

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
D41Sea, off Mid and East Antrim100%Very high
HT82Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HU39Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
HU51Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HU53Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
HX90Sea, off Orkney Islands100%Very high
HY61Sea, off Orkney Islands100%Very high
HY73Orkney Islands, Scotland100%Very high
HY85Sea, off Orkney Islands100%Very high
HY86Sea, off Orkney Islands100%Very high

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.