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The word petrel (first recorded in that spelling 1703) comes from earlier (ca. 1670) pitteral; the English explorer William Dampier wrote the bird was so called from its way of flying with its feet just skimming the surface of the water, recalling Saint Peter's walk on the sea of Galilee (Matthew xiv.28); if so, it likely was formed in English as a diminutive of Peter (< Old French: Peterelle ...
Storm petrel or stormy petrel may refer to one of two bird families, both in the order Procellariiformes, once treated as the same family. Up and down!—up and down! From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,
Procellariiformes / p r ɒ s ɛ ˈ l ɛər i. ɪ f ɔːr m iː z / is an order of seabirds that comprises four families: the albatrosses, the petrels and shearwaters, and two families of storm petrels.
The storm-petrels are the smallest seabirds, relatives of the petrels, feeding on planktonic crustaceans and small fish picked from the surface, typically while hovering. Their flight is fluttering and sometimes bat-like. Wilson's storm petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) Wilson's storm petrel, Oceanites oceanicus LC; Elliot's storm petrel, Oceanites ...
The stormy petrel finds a home, - A home, if such a place may be For her who lives on the wide, wide sea. O’er the deep! - o’er the deep! Where the whale and the shark and the sword-fish sleep, - Outflying the blast and the driving rain, The petrel telleth her tale — in vain; Yet he ne’er falters, - so, petrel, spring
The association of the storm petrel with turbulent weather has led to its use as a metaphor for revolutionary views, [74] the epithet "stormy petrel" being applied by various authors to characters as disparate as Roman tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher, [75] a Presbyterian minister in the early Carolinas, [76] an Afghan governor, [77] or an ...
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The family Oceanitidae was introduced in 1881 by the English zoologist William Alexander Forbes. [1] Two subfamilies of storm petrel were traditionally recognized. [2] The Oceanitinae, or austral storm-petrels, were mostly found in southern waters (though Wilson's storm petrel regularly migrates into the Northern Hemisphere); the ten species are placed in five genera. [3]