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The UK Bird Atlas

Sooty Shearwater (Ardenna grisea)Where and when to see it in the UK

Status not yet classified · reporting peaks August to September · Petrels, Shearwaters, and Diving Petrels · BOU category AF

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

Sooty Shearwater (Ardenna grisea)
Mike Baird from Morro Bay, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Sooty Shearwater: 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.

Sooty Shearwater has been recorded in 359 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (12%) in records to 2026. Its strongest squares are in Scotland, England and Wales. Reporting peaks in August to September.

Conservation status: Near Threatened (IUCN Red List, NT)
View on the IUCN Red List
Relative to this species' best squares (how classes are calculated)
Very high
22% or more of visits
High
5% to 22%
Moderate
1% to 5%
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 1%<1%Moderate
February 0%<1%Low
March 1%<1%Low
April 1%<1%Low
May 0%<1%Very high
June 3%<1%Low
July 18%<1%Very high
August 100%1%Very high
September 96%1%Very high
October 40%<1%Low
November 18%<1%Low
December 3%<1%Very high

Squares with the highest reporting rate in August

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
HP20Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HP21Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HP52Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HP62Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HU69Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
HU87Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
HY53Orkney Islands, Scotland100%Very high
HZ15Sea, off Shetland Islands100%Very high
NB42Na h-Eileanan Siar, Scotland100%Very high
NB81Sea, off Highland100%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.