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The UK Bird Atlas

Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscatus)Where and when to see it in the UK

Scarce migrant · reporting peaks July · Skimmers, Noddies, Terns, and Gulls · BOU category A

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

Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscatus)
Drew Avery, CC BY 2.0, 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.

Sooty 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.

Sooty Tern has been recorded in 15 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (1%) in records to 2026. Scarce migrant in the UK. Reporting peaks in July.

Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN Red List, LC)
View on the IUCN Red List

Records by 10 km square

SquareWhereRecordsYearsVerified
NU21Northumberland, England62020unverified
TM46Suffolk, England52020unverified
NZ38Northumberland, England52019unverified
NZ46South Tyneside, England22018 to 2019unverified
TA17East Riding of Yorkshire, England12019unverified
TA09North Yorkshire, England12019unverified
NK02Aberdeenshire, Scotland102016 to 2018unverified
NU23Northumberland, England22018unverified
SJ18Flintshire, Wales12016unverified
TM58Suffolk, England12011unverified
SH39Isle of Anglesey, Wales452005unverified
SH29Isle of Anglesey, Wales172005unverified
SH37Isle of Anglesey, Wales22005unverified
J58Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland12005unverified
TM45Suffolk, England12001unverified

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.