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The UK Bird Atlas

Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)Where and when to see it in the UK

Resident · reporting peaks January · Ibises and Spoonbills · BOU category AE

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

Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)
Egretta_garzetta_Plegadis_falcinellus_Syracuse.jpg: Gabriele Iuvara derivative work: MPF, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Glossy Ibis: 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.

Glossy Ibis has been recorded in 382 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (13%) in records to 2026. Resident in the UK. Its strongest squares are in England, Wales and Scotland. Reporting peaks in January.

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
100% or more of visits
High
3% to 100%
Moderate
<1% to 3%
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 100%<1%Very high
February 67%<1%Very high
March 90%<1%High
April 97%<1%Low
May 80%<1%Moderate
June 62%<1%Moderate
July 61%<1%Moderate
August 85%<1%Low
September 96%<1%Very high
October 86%<1%Very high
November 69%<1%Very high
December 52%<1%Very high

Squares with the highest reporting rate in January

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
HP60Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
HP61Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
NZ36South Tyneside, England100%Very high
NZ39Northumberland, England100%Very high
SD41Lancashire, England100%Very high
SD60Wigan, England100%Very high
SE81North Lincolnshire, England100%Very high
SJ76Cheshire East, England100%Very high
SK61Leicestershire, England100%Very high
SN40Carmarthenshire, Wales100%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.