Halobaena caerulea
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The blue petrel (Halobaena caerulea) is a small seabird in the shearwater and petrel family, Procellariidae. This small petrel is the only member of the genus Halobaena, but is closely allied to the prions. It is distributed across the Southern Ocean but breeds at a few island sites, all close to the Antarctic Convergence zone.
The blue petrel was first described in 1777 by the German naturalist Georg Forster in his book A Voyage Round the World. He had accompanied James Cook on Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. Forster did not give the blue petrel a binomial name, but when the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin updated Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae in 1789 he included a brief description of the bird, coined the binomial name Procellaria caerulea and cited Forster's book. The blue petrel is now the only species placed in the genus Halobaena that was introduced for the blue petrel in 1856 by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The name Halobaena combines the Ancient Greek hals, halos meaning "sea" with bainō meaning "to tread". The specific epithet caerulea is from Latin caeruleus meaning "blue". The word "petrel" is derived from Saint Peter and the...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | 🇬🇸 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | |
| 2 | Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands | 🇦🇶 Antarctica |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Blue Petrel sighting in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands on a given day, based on 109 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 25th most-seen of the 37 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April–May and September–December
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Blue Petrel in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands on a given day, against under 5% in March, the lowest month. July and August have too few records to rate.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Blue Petrel sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 2 parks where we can rate Blue Petrel sightings, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands has the highest daily chance: about 10%. Next come Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands (Antarctica, about 10%).
Same family: Procellariidae
The closest relatives of the Blue Petrel that you can see in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (family Procellariidae, Shearwaters and Petrels) are Southern Giant Petrel (about 80%), Northern Giant Petrel (about 80%) and White-chinned Petrel (about 60%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Blue Petrel is recorded against all the birds logged in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (109 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.
