How to Use petrel in a Sentence

petrel

noun
  • Its foe, a burly male southern giant petrel, isn’t there for the egg.
    — Jake Buehler, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 July 2021
  • These areas are renowned for hosting two of the world’s largest Antarctic petrel colonies.
    — Melissa Breyer, Treehugger, 13 Mar. 2023
  • With a lunge, the petrel bites the albatross around the neck, dragging it off into the bushes.
    — Jake Buehler, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 July 2021
  • This high-altitude realm is the nesting site for Zino’s petrel, one of the rarest birds in the world.
    — National Geographic, 10 Jan. 2020
  • That’s the normal timeline of events for birds like the Antarctic petrel, the snow petrel and the south polar skua.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Mar. 2023
  • Pigeons, petrels, honeybees and possibly bears and mice use odor maps of their neighborhoods to return to den sites or nests.
    — Michael Engelhard, Alaska Dispatch News, 1 July 2017
  • The increase in owls coincided with a major uptick in the number of petrel carcasses.
    — Peter Fimrite, SFChronicle.com, 7 Oct. 2019
  • Other petrels, meanwhile, typically must hunt while flying or swimming in the ocean.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Observers from Manomet Point saw two Northern fulmars and a Leach’s storm-petrel.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 14 Oct. 2019
  • Skuas, gulls and giant petrels cross enormous distances over the Southern Ocean, and the virus traveled with them.
    — John Drake, Forbes.com, 21 June 2026
  • The grey petrel, which had not bred on Macquarie for more than a century, began to do so the year the island's program was completed.
    — Simon Willis, Travel + Leisure, 14 Dec. 2021
  • Albatrosses, petrels and other seabirds that remain loyal to one breeding spot rarely try new locations, even if birds from the same species have lived there before.
    — Ethan Freedman, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 May 2024
  • But shearwaters, as well as petrels and albatrosses, are part of a class known as tube-nosed seabirds, with tubular nostrils and an excellent senses of smell.
    — Matthew Savoca, The Conversation, 21 Mar. 2023
  • The gear included snow shoes because another of the island’s birds, the Bonin petrel, burrows deep tunnels into the ground to nest.
    — Erika I. Ritchie, Orange County Register, 5 Feb. 2024
  • Take the Cory's shearwater, an oceangoing petrel species that migrates over the Atlantic every year.
    — Jason G. Goldman, Scientific American, 1 May 2020
  • As a result, boobies, shearwaters, petrels, and other seabirds have recovered, and island creatures from lizards to stick insects have reclaimed their homes.
    — Byelizabeth Pennisi, science.org, 19 Sep. 2024
  • Registered guests are trained to rescue juvenile puffins and petrels at night—when they can be confused by artificial light—then release them in the right direction in the morning.
    — Michael S. Nolan, National Geographic, 12 June 2019
  • The explosive growth in mice has attracted burrowing owls, who not only eat the mice but also prey upon the storm-petrels, a rare bird with a declining population.
    — Laura Newberry, latimes.com, 7 July 2019
  • In recent years, the mouse population has exploded, attracting burrowing owls that also prey on the ashy storm-petrel, officials said.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 21 Dec. 2021
  • Slater, who was actually on a mission to locate the Hawaiian petrel, another endangered seabird, was able to pick up the scent for another rare species of seabird.
    — Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 9 Dec. 2022
  • The scientists counted how many giant petrel chicks survived each year, and used this to represent the threat from predators that macaroni penguins would experience.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 6 June 2014
  • While penguins may look profoundly different from other birds, their DNA points to a close kinship to such species as albatrosses and petrels.
    — Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 12 Dec. 2017
  • The islands boast one of the world’s largest breeding colonies for seabirds, including the rare ashy storm-petrel, whose population — half of which lives on the Farallones — has declined in recent decades.
    — Rosanna Xia, latimes.com, 10 July 2019
  • Getting rid of the mice, which are the last remaining nonnative mammals on the islands, would reduce owl predation enough for the petrel population to stabilize and maybe even grow, the study said.
    — Peter Fimrite, SFChronicle.com, 7 Oct. 2019
  • There has been early storm-petrel sightings in Boston Harbor along with strong plankton bloom and attendant tubenoses located south and east of Cape Cod.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 7 July 2019
  • The rats—brought to the island by whalers and sealers as early as the late 18th century—ate the eggs and vulnerable chicks of seabirds, including albatrosses, skua, terns, and petrels.
    — National Geographic, 9 May 2018
  • But when the mouse population crashes in the winter, the owls prey on the ashy storm-petrel, whose population on the islands — where half the world’s storm petrels nest — has been declining since the ’90s.
    — Laura Newberry, latimes.com, 7 July 2019
  • Conservationists have long worried about microplastics, the tiny bits that have been found in the stomachs of seabirds, including many petrels, auklets and gulls that live along the California coast.
    — Peter Fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Birds such as albatross and southern giant petrels are often visible soaring through the skies above, while elephant seals permeate the beaches and solitary leopard seals feed in the surrounding waters.
    — Laura Kiniry, Condé Nast Traveler, 28 Jan. 2026
  • With the rats gone, conservationists expect to see an explosion in the number of albatrosses, skuas, terns, petrels, and South Georgia pipits and pintail ducks.
    — Charlie Hamilton James, National Geographic, 17 June 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'petrel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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