Annual passage migrant and summer visitor.

Annual passage migrants and summer visitors at Fairlands Valley Lakes, from where they were first recorded on 6 May 1974 when three were seen. The most seen together there are 11 on 16 September 1980.

Between 1993 and 2024 between one and seven birds were seen at Fairlands Valley Lakes in the summer. Whilst they are known to travel considerable distances from their nest sites to fish, and this may account for the presence of some of them, others have been seen displaying. The nearest nest sites to Stevenage were at Amwell in the Lea Valley where artificial rafts were provided for them to nest on. In recent years their numbers there declined coinciding with the arrival of breeding Black-headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ribibundas) on the rafts, with no breeding recorded since 2023.

The earliest date they have been seen at Fairlands Valley Lakes is 5 April 1982, and the latest date is 23 September 2017, when four juveniles were seen.