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The UK Bird Atlas

Long-tailed Skua (Stercorarius longicaudus)Where and when to see it in the UK

Status not yet classified · reporting peaks September · Jaegers and Skuas · BOU category AF

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

Long-tailed Skua (Stercorarius longicaudus)
Jerzy Strzelecki, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Long-tailed Skua: 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.

Long-tailed Skua has been recorded in 200 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (7%) in records to 2026. Its strongest squares are in England, Scotland and Wales. Reporting peaks in September.

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
10% or more of visits
High
2% to 10%
Moderate
<1% to 2%
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 0%<1%Insufficient records
February 0%<1%Very high
March 2%<1%Low
April 0%<1%Very high
May 6%<1%Very high
June 3%<1%Very high
July 9%<1%Low
August 70%<1%High
September 100%<1%High
October 23%<1%Low
November 5%<1%Very high
December 0%<1%Very high

Squares with the highest reporting rate in September

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
NB71Sea, off Highland100%Very high
NB84Sea, off Highland100%Very high
NG17Sea, off Highland100%Very high
NJ91Aberdeenshire, Scotland100%Very high
NK14Aberdeenshire, Scotland100%Very high
SD21Sefton, England100%Very high
SD33Lancashire, England100%Very high
SH53Gwynedd, Wales100%Very high
SJ39Liverpool, England100%Very high
ST55Somerset, 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.