petrel

The storm petrel is among the smallest seabirds, yet it spends almost its entire life over open ocean, far from any shore. When it feeds, it dangles its feet and appears to walk or run across the water's surface — pattering with its feet while its wings hold it aloft. Sailors watching this behavior named it after Saint Peter: Petrus in Latin, Pierre in French, Peter in English. Saint Peter famously stepped out of a boat onto the Sea of Galilee, walking on water until his faith faltered. The petrel performs this miracle continuously.

The word entered English through French petrel or pittrel, and it appears in texts from the late seventeenth century. Before that, storm petrels were called 'Mother Carey's chickens' by English sailors — Mother Carey being a corruption of Mater Cara, a sailor's name for the Virgin Mary or perhaps a separate figure from maritime folklore. Storm petrels were believed to presage bad weather, and seeing them was both an omen and a comfort: proof that land was somewhere, that the sea had a guardian.

The petrel's life is almost inconceivably pelagic. Wandering albatrosses may spend years at sea, but the small storm petrel is equally committed to the open ocean. It breeds on remote islands, often nesting in burrows to avoid predators, and returns to the same burrow year after year, sometimes traveling thousands of miles to find it. The contrast between this extraordinary navigational ability and its tiny size made it especially wondrous to sailors who spent months without seeing land.

Today there are roughly 100 species of petrel and shearwater, all belonging to the order Procellariiformes — the tube-nosed seabirds. The name 'petrel' applies across the family, from the smallest storm petrel to the giant petrel of the Southern Ocean. Each carries Peter's name, each appears to walk where only faith should hold a person. In ornithological Latin, the storm petrel's genus is Hydrobates: water-walker. Saint Peter, in two languages, names the same miracle.