It is often challenging to build an empirical evidence base for dispersal in long-lived and wide ranging species. The black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla, hereafter ‘kittiwake’) is a long-lived northern hemisphere pelagic gull. Species assessments currently define discrete kittiwake colonies as closed populations; a precautionary approach potentially lacking in biological realism. Here, a historic dataset of host-parasite multilocus microsatellite genotypes and a well-established Bayesian inferential analytical program, BayesAss (BA3), were used to estimate recent dispersal and summer breeding movements among kittiwake colonies (collectively, colony ‘connectivity’). Data were from Atlantic kittiwakes (R. t. tridactyla) and its tick (Ixodes uriae) sampled in the High Arctic (northeast Canada; northwest Greenland; Svalbard; northern Norway), Atlantic Ocean (eastern Canada; Iceland; northwest France; western Scotland), North Sea (eastern Scotland) and Irish Sea (western Ireland). Despite uncertainty around dispersal estimates inferred from kittiwake microsatellites, results were indicative of dispersal occurring over large geographic scales and predominantly longitudinally, east to west. Tick microsatellite analyses (a proxy of kittiwake movements during the summer breeding season) grouped colonies in Iceland, Norway, Scotland and France separately from Newfoundland and Barents Sea colonies. Overall, colony connectivity was less likely to occur across the Atlantic Ocean. Non-linear negative relationships between geographic distance and colony connectivity suggest that spatial scale may be an important, but not the only, mechanism underpinning dispersal and breeding movements in kittiwakes. Results are discussed in the context of spatio-temporally relevant population metrics, ecological hypotheses, anthropogenic pressures, and the potential for data integration to improve species assessments and management strategies.