This species is marine and highly pelagic, avoiding land except during breeding. Little is known about its diet, but it is known to include cephalopods and prawns which it catches mainly by surface-seizing and dipping, but also pattering. It has often been recorded feeding in association with other Procellariiformes. It breeds in colonies on oceanic islands, usually making burrows on high ground inland amongst scrub or tussock grass (del Hoyo et al. 1992).

The Black-winged Petrel breeds in the south-west Pacific, from Lord Howe Island (Australia) and eastern Australia in the west, New Caledonia in the north, the Chatham Islands (New Zealand) in the south and Austral Islands (French Polynesia) in the east. Outside the breeding season it migrates to the north and east Pacific, being common in the north-west Pacific in July - November, and particularly abundant between the Hawaiian Islands (U.S.A.) and Peru.