Antarctic Petrel

The adult Antarctic petrel has a brown head, sides, throat, and back. The bill is dark brown and the feet are grey. The underparts are white and their tail and secondaries on the wings are white with brown tips. These are medium-sized relative to other petrels with a wingspan of 100–110 cm (39–43 in), a length of 40–45 cm (16–18 in), and an average weight of 675 g (23.8 oz).

The Antarctic petrel, as its name implies, lives and breeds in the Southern Ocean, and on the Antarctic islands. They nest on snow-free cliffs and rock faces, on the coast or on offshore islands. However, they have been found up to 250 km inland. Another common roosting spot is icebergs. Breeding colonies during the October–November breeding period, can be as large as 200,000 pairs. However, the largest single colony ever observed, Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains, was estimated to be about one million Antartic petrels, presumably including non-breeders and chicks. They occasionally migrate to Australia or New Zealand in late winter. This tends to occur when they are caught in a bad storm.

The petrel's diet is mainly krill, squid and small fish. Food is usually seized when the bird is on the surface but they also plunge-dive to obtain food, diving up to a depth of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in).