Short- to long-distance migrant, breeding in the Palearctic (ssp. arquata in Europe, orientalis east of the Urals). Nominate subspecies breeding from Spain to Fennoscandia and Russia, wintering along European and N African coasts. A few orientalis visit E Mediterranean coasts. There have been long-term declines in breeding numbers across Europe, so the speices is listed as Near Threatened at the global scale (Brown 2015).