John K. O'Neill, age 11, of Frederickton, N.B., Canada, for his question:
What sort of bird is a petrel?
If you live near the sea, you almost certainly have seen him. But perhaps you mistook the petrel for a teenage sea gull or some other ocean going bird. As a rule he is very busy with a group of his friends and relatives and their antics often are very amusing to watch.
Bird lovers list about 57 members of the petrel family. And all of them are children of the sea. Their spindly legs are not suitable for life on land and when they try to launch themselves from the ground, they have to beat their wings frantically. They are too clumsy on land to escape the many meat eating prowlers, but the petrels are quite at home on and over the seas. Some of them do not bother to come near the shore for six months at a time. There is plenty of fishy food to be found in the oceans. When tired of flying, the sea going petrel just sits down on the water like a duck. He has webbed feet that he can use as paddles to row himself along. Or he can leave his feet dangling and just bob up and down on the waves.
All the petrels are built somewhat like the graceful gulls, but many of them are no bigger than robins and swallows. The biggest one has a wingspread that spans 20¬inches wide. The petrels do not wear snowy white plumage like most of the gulls. Their most popular colors are browns and grays, which give them a rather drab appearance. Most of them wear their favorite colors in patches and some may have patches of rather dirty looking white. They have long curved bills that may be black or white or pink.
The name of the petrel was borrowed from Saint Peter, who managed to walk on the water. People in the Old World noticed that the little petrel bird also walks on top of the water after a fashion. He uses his big webbed feet to splash a path on the waves and beats his wings frantically as though he fears he will sink. He is not really a very successful water walker, but this does not seem to discourage him or his friends from trying and it is fun to watch their antics as they dash and splash around.
Certain petrels who live south of the equator are superb divers. They fly clear through the crests of the high waves or plummet down into the sea and swim under water. Some people say that they can zoom up from a dive underwater straight into a flight in the air all in one swift motion. In the Old World people noticed that the dainty little birds tend to get caught by a high wind and be blown far inland. Such winds often came before storms and when a petrel was seen way off his natural course, he was counted as a weather warning. He was named the stormy petrel.
When nesting time comes around, many flocks of petrels fly south, far south to lonely shores and islands. There they nest on cold, deserted islands near the south polar continent of Antarctica. The mother birds lay only one precious egg. Both parents take turns keeping it warm and both work hard to feed and pamper their fuzzy, fat chick. In about three months he is ready to leave the nest and join his friends and relatives on ocean going trips, far and wide around the world.