Oceanodroma furcata
Silhouette: Richard Crossley · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The fork-tailed storm petrel (Hydrobates furcatus) is a small seabird of the storm petrel family Hydrobatidae. It is the second-most abundant and widespread storm petrel (after Leach's storm petrel) and is the only bird in its family that is bluish-grey in colour.
The fork-tailed storm petrel is pelagic, spending up to 8 months in the northern Pacific Ocean. They only return to land to breed, where they nest in a single colony. Their nests can be found in a rock crevice or small burrow, where a single egg is laid. Their breeding range is along the coast of the northern Pacific Ocean, extending from northern California to northeast Asia.
They mainly feed on planktonic crustaceans, small fish, and squid, but also consume offal. Similarly to other storm petrels, they forage by picking food off the surface of the water while in flight. The fork-tailed storm petrel was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the petrels in the genus Procellaria and coined the binomial name Procellaria furcata. Gmelin based his description on the "fork-tailed petrel... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenai Fjords National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Great Bear Rainforest | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Pacific Rim National Park Reserve | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Fork-tailed Storm Petrel sighting in Great Bear Rainforest on a given day, based on 428 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 108th most-seen of the 239 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July to September
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Fork-tailed Storm Petrel in Great Bear Rainforest on a given day, against under 5% in October to June, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Fork-tailed Storm Petrel sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 3 parks where we can rate Fork-tailed Storm Petrel sightings, Great Bear Rainforest ranks 2nd at under 5%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Kenai Fjords National Park (United States, under 5%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Fork-tailed Storm Petrel is recorded against all the birds logged in Great Bear Rainforest (428 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
