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The UK Bird Atlas

Little Gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus)Where and when to see it in the UK

Summer visitor · reporting peaks April · Skimmers, Noddies, Terns, and Gulls · BOU category AF

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

Little Gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus)
Ekaterina Chernetsova (Papchinskaya) from Saint-Petersburg, Russia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Little Gull: 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.

Little Gull has been recorded in 771 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (26%) in records to 2026. Summer visitor in the UK. Its strongest squares are in England, Scotland and Wales. Reporting peaks in April.

Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN Red List, LC)
View on the IUCN Red List
Relative to this species' best squares (how classes are calculated)
Very high
17% or more of visits
High
3% to 17%
Moderate
<1% to 3%
Low
under <1%
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 13%<1%Very high
February 12%<1%Very high
March 35%<1%Low
April 94%1%High
May 59%<1%Low
June 55%<1%Very high
July 100%1%Very high
August 84%1%High
September 79%1%High
October 90%1%High
November 81%1%Very high
December 19%<1%Moderate

Squares with the highest reporting rate in April

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
HU30Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
J54Newry, Mourne and Down, Northern Ireland100%Very high
NG09Na h-Eileanan Siar, Scotland100%Very high
NK03Aberdeenshire, Scotland100%Very high
NS35North Ayrshire, Scotland100%Very high
NS39Argyll and Bute, Scotland100%Very high
NT08Fife, Scotland100%Very high
NU21Northumberland, England100%Very high
SD61Lancashire, England100%Very high
SD91Rochdale, England100%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.