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The UK Bird Atlas

Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus)Where and when to see it in the UK

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

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

Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus)
Dick Daniels (http://carolinabirds.org/), CC BY-SA 3.0, 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.

Royal 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.

Royal Tern has been recorded in 5 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (0%) in records to 2026. Vagrant in the UK. Reporting peaks in June.

Conservation status: Not Evaluated (IUCN Red List, NE)
View on the IUCN Red List

Records by 10 km square

SquareWhereRecordsYearsVerified
SW53Cornwall, England52019unverified
SZ89West Sussex, England92018unverified
SH48Isle of Anglesey, Wales32018unverified
SH78Conwy, Wales22009unverified
SH53Gwynedd, Wales12009unverified

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.