When do common terns arrive in and leave the UK?

A summer visitor in the records: sightings rise sharply from mid April, are near their peak by late April, and fall away after mid September.

When do common terns arrive in the UK?

In the GBIF records, UK sightings of the common tern rise sharply from mid April and are near their peak by late April.

When do common terns leave the UK?

UK sightings fall away after mid September.

Where do common terns go in winter?

From December to February the strongest signal in the effort-adjusted GBIF records is around South Africa. The globe shows the whole winter range month by month.

Common tern in the UK, month by month

Bars: this species’ share of all UK bird records in GBIF (CC0/CC BY 4.0 only), by month, scaled to the peak month. Based on 155,813 UK records (occurrence search API, country=GB, weekly). Dates come from sightings, not a survey, so treat them as a guide.

See the common tern migration on the 3D globe →

About the common tern

The common tern is a seabird in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. …

From the Wikipedia article “Common tern” (revision 1380659743), CC BY-SA 4.0, shortened at a sentence end. Winter/summer areas: country containing the monthly hotspot of effort-adjusted GBIF records, using Natural Earth boundaries (public domain).

Other UK summer visitors: see the full list with arrival and departure dates.