Diving petrels are small, chunky seabirds of the far south that look and behave remarkably like the little auks of the north, even though they are not related. They are 7-10 inches (18-25 cm) long and weigh 3-8 oz (90-230 g), with short wings, dark backs, white bellies and the tube-shaped nostrils of all petrels.
Their flight is a fast, whirring buzz low over the sea, and they often fly straight into the face of a wave and out the other side. Underwater they use their wings to swim, diving to 200 feet (60 m) or more after their prey.
There are four to five species, including the common, South Georgia, Magellanic and Peruvian diving petrels and the Whenua Hou diving petrel of New Zealand.
Diving petrels live in the cold waters of the Southern Ocean and the Humboldt Current off South America, around the sub-Antarctic islands and the coasts of southern Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Chile.
They nest in burrows on islands and rarely travel far from their breeding grounds, unlike most petrels.
They feed on krill, copepods and other small crustaceans, along with small fish and squid, caught on short wing-propelled dives.
Diving petrels visit their burrows only at night to avoid gulls and skuas. Each pair lays a single egg, and both parents take turns incubating for about eight weeks and feeding the chick for another eight.
At sea they are usually seen alone or in small groups, bursting from the water and skimming away, rather than following ships like other petrels.
Diving petrels make up the genus Pelecanoides in the petrel family. The common and South Georgia diving petrels are listed by the IUCN as Least Concern and number in the millions. The Peruvian diving petrel is Endangered: guano mining destroyed its nesting islands, and fishing and introduced predators keep numbers low. The Whenua Hou diving petrel, recognised as a separate species in 2018, is Critically Endangered with only about 200 birds.
