 Nesting occurs in the winter in order to avoid competition for burrows with other nesting procellariids.In the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands the nesting season sometimes overlaps with the larger wedge-tailed shearwater, which will evict and even kill Bonin petrel chicks in order to use the nesting burrows.Both parents participate in digging burrows, which are usually dug in sand or hard coral substrate, and are between 1 and 3 m long.