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Mother Carey's chicken

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

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Mother Carey's chicken (plural Mother Carey's chickens)

  1. (originally nautical) The storm petrel.
    • 1773, James Cook, The Journals, Second Voyage, 27 December:
      A few blue petrels, black sheer-waters and Mather Caries chickens are all the birds we see.
    • 2004, Nicholas Shakespeare, In Tasmania, Harvill Press, p. 36:
      Kemp watched sperm whales and green turtles and hundreds of gulls and petrels – known as “Mother Carey's chickens” – that flew around the ship with piercing screams.