The northern waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis) It is a rare vagrant to other South American countries and to western Europe. Its closest relative is the Louisiana waterthrush.

Taxonomy

The northern waterthrush was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the wagtails in the genus Motacilla and coined the binomial name Motacilla noveboracensis. Gmelin based his account on descriptions of the species by earlier authors, none of whom had coined a binomial name. In 1778 the French polymath the Comte de Buffon had described "La fauvette tacheté de la Louisiane" in his book Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. A hand-coloured engraving by François-Nicolas Martinet was published separately to accompany Buffon's text. The species was later described under the name "New York warbler" by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1783 and by the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant in 1785. The northern waterthrush is now placed together with the Louisiana waterthrush in the genus Parkesia that was introduced in 2008 by George Sangster. The genus name was chosen to honour the American ornithologist Kenneth Carroll Parkes. The specific epithet noveboracensis is for New York, United States. It combines novus meaning "new" with Eboracum, the Latin name for York, England). Latham had mentioned that the species was "met with in the hedges about New York". Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the tail is , the bill is and the tarsus is . On the head, the crown is brown with a white supercilium. The bill is pointed and dark. The throat is lightly streaked brown to black with heavier streaking continuing onto the breast and flanks. The back is evenly brown. Sexes are morphologically similar. Young birds have buff, rather than white underparts. The song of loud, emphatic, clear chirping notes generally falling in pitch and accelerating; loosely paired or tripled, with little variation. Call a loud, hard spwik rising with a strong K sound. The flight call is a buzzy, high, slightly rising zzip.

Both waterthrush species walk rather than hop, and seem to teeter, since they bob their rear ends as they move along.

Distribution and habitat

Northern waterthrush territories are distributed across both upland and riparian habitats, but have limited occupation of harvested areas. Crowding into riparian buffer zones adjacent to harvested areas have more difficulty foraging compared to those in untouched areas.

On the wintering grounds in Puerto Rico, northern waterthrushes leave daytime foraging areas and fly up to to nighttime roosts. The roosts are often located in red mangrove habitats. There have been eight recorded sightings in the UK between 1958 and 2024. An exceptional record comes from Antofagasta, Chile.

Behavior

Waterthrushes wintering in red and black mangrove can maintain body weight through the winter but lose weight in scrub. Another determinant in body mass increase in the wintering grounds is moisture.

Breeding

The breeding habitat of the northern waterthrush is wet woodlands near water, especially rivers and streams. It will occasionally nest in upland areas in the roots of fallen trees. Northern waterthrushes build a cup nest constructed of leaves, bark strips, and rootlets in cavities or among tree roots. It lays three to six eggs, cream- or buff-colored, with brown and gray spots.

Food and feeding

The northern waterthrush is a terrestrial ground feeder, mollusks (such as snails),

  • Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center - Northern waterthrush research
  • Northern waterthrush - Seiurus noveboracensis - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
  • Northern waterthrush species account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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Further reading

Books

  • Eaton, S. W. 1995. Northern Waterthrush (Seiurus noveboracensis). In The Birds of North America, No. 182 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.

Thesis

  • Craig RJ. Ph.D. (1981). COMPARATIVE ECOLOGY OF THE LOUISIANA AND NORTHERN WATERTHRUSHES. The University of Connecticut, United States, Connecticut.
  • Gaudette MT. Ph.D. (1998). Modeling wetland songbird community integrity in central Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State University, United States, Pennsylvania.
  • Powell KG. M.Sc. (2005). Songbird movement, relative abundance, and species composition in natural and managed forest landscapes in western Newfoundland. Acadia University (Canada), Canada.
  • Ramos Olmos MA. Ph.D. (1983). SEASONAL MOVEMENTS OF BIRD POPULATIONS AT A NEOTROPICAL STUDY SITE IN SOUTHERN VERACRUZ, MEXICO. University of Minnesota, United States, Minnesota.

Articles

  • Winker K, Warner DW & Weisbrod AR. (1992). The Northern Waterthrush and Swainson's Thrush as Transients at a Temperate Inland Stopover Site. In Hagan, J M Iii and D W Johnston (Ed) Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Migrant Landbirds; Symposium, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, December 6–9, 1989 Xiii+609p Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington, DC, USA; London, England, Uk Illus Maps 384–402, 1992.

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