User:Athib65/Antarctic petrel

Breeding
The Antarctic petrel breeding period is during October-November. Each pair lays a single egg, which they incubate for 45-48 days after which there is a 42-47 day nestling period. Both members of the pair incubate the egg, 4% of pairs are female-female.

Eggs have a 70-90% hatching rate. The two main causes of egg loss were predation by South polar skuas, and an egg rolling out of the nest and freezing.

Antarctic petrel chicks rely on their parents for food as well as warmth. The physiological condition of the parent petrel dictates the amount of food it provides to its chick. Provisioning by parent petrels depends on both their own body condition and their chick’s needs. Parent petrels in better body condition were more likely to have a chick that survived, and were able to increase the amount of food they gave to a smaller chick in a cross-fostering experiment. Chicks become thermally independent after day 11 post-hatching.