Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various small seabirds of the family Hydrobatidae, found in most of the world's oceans and generally having dark plumage.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of storm petrel.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from the fact that they take shelter in the lees of ships during storms.]

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Examples

  • Non-endemic threatened birds include the waved albatross Phoebastria irrorata (VU) and Markham's storm-petrel Oceanodroma markhami.

    Galápagos National Park & Galápagos Marine Resources Reserve, Ecuador 2009

  • Status and distribution of fea's petrel, bulwer's petrel, manx shearwater, little shearwater and band-rumped storm-petrel in the azores archipelago.

    Azores temperate mixed forests 2008

  • One of these EBAs, Guadalupe Island, is the native range of the Guadalupe junco (Junco insularis, CR) and the now extinct Guadalupe caracara (Polyborus lutosus) and Guadalupe storm-petrel, the latter last recorded in 1912.

    Biological diversity in the California Floristic Province 2008

  • Of the species that disappeared, four were probably endemic; these were a flightless duck and a storm-petrel, both undescribed, and likely two petrels of the genera Pterodroma and Procellaria.

    Amsterdam and Saint-Paul Islands temperate grasslands 2007

  • [2] _Nerrvik_, a beautiful maiden, according to the legend, married a storm-petrel who had disguised himself as a man.

    The Eternal Maiden T. Everett Harr��

  • Only such a storm-petrel as Rosanne Ozanne, weary, with wings beaten and torn by winds whose fateful forces she herself did not understand, could realize the full allure of that word.

    Blue Aloes Stories of South Africa Cynthia Stockley

  • "Wildcat of the Mountains"; the man who had come home straight as a storm-petrel at the first note of tempest, and marked his coming with double murder.

    The Call of the Cumberlands Charles Neville Buck 1904

  • During the last forty years the following birds, among others, have been noticed as occasional visitants: the storm-petrel (_Procellaria pelagica_), golden oriole

    Hertfordshire Herbert Winckworth Tompkins 1901

  • Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way.

    Options O. Henry 1886

  • They had least confidence in the estimated ranges for the common gull (50km), common eider (80km) and Leach's/European storm-petrel (90km).

    BBC News - Home 2012

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