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The UK Bird Atlas

Night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)Where and when to see it in the UK

Status not yet classified · reporting peaks April · Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns · BOU category AE*F

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

Night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)
Mdf at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Night-heron: 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.

Night-heron has been recorded in 135 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (5%) in records to 2026. Its strongest squares are in England, Wales and Scotland. Reporting peaks in April.

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
5% to 100%
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 0%<1%Very high
February 0%<1%Very high
March 0%<1%Very high
April 100%<1%Moderate
May 25%<1%Very high
June 30%<1%Very high
July 35%<1%Very high
August 16%<1%Moderate
September 6%<1%Moderate
October 0%<1%High
November 0%<1%Low
December 0%<1%Insufficient records

Squares with the highest reporting rate in April

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
NU14Northumberland, England100%Very high
SE22Kirklees, England100%Very high
SE74East Riding of Yorkshire, England100%Very high
SM81Pembrokeshire, Wales100%Very high
SN11Pembrokeshire, Wales100%Very high
SN50Carmarthenshire, Wales100%Very high
SS59Swansea, Wales100%Very high
ST35Somerset, England100%Very high
SY08Devon, England100%Very high
SZ09Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, England100%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.