This dataset contains data on the movement of the seabird tick, Ixodes uriae, in an artificial arena. 24 adult female and 24 nymphal I. uriae were collected on the Isle of May, Scotland on the 25th-27th March 2014 and 18th July 2013 respectively. Nymphal ticks were taken from boiler suits worn by field workers, and adult female ticks were taken from cracks in the rock face. They were then transported to a laboratory where they were individually placed in an artificial arena, composed of a single A1 piece of paper and 30 cm high walls. Straight line distances moved were then measured at fixed time intervals. This work was part of a NERC-funded PhD project looking at interactions between avian colonial social structure and tick-borne pathogen dynamics. Full details about this nonGeographicDataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/aec8b5b2-642b-41ae-8c30-36a4388411cb