Northern Waterthrush

Overview

Northern Waterthrush: Large, ground-walking warbler with dark brown upperparts and white to pale yellow underparts with dark, heavy streaks. Eyebrows are thick and vary from pale yellow to white. It flies swiftly in a direct line for short distances. Territorial in both its winter and summer ranges.

Range and Habitat

Northern Waterthrush: Breeds from Alaska and much of Canada south to the northern U.S. Spends winters in the tropics. Prefers cool, dark, wooded swamps, thickets of bogs, margins of northern lakes, and willow and alder bordered rivers; during the spring and fall migration, often found in thick cover along streams, marshes, and stagnant pools.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Northern Waterthrush is territorial in both winter and summer.
Banding studies show that they can live up to 7 years in the wild.
The Bird Banding Lab web site reports that between 1955 and 1997, a total of 18,658 were banded. Of these, only 7 have ever been recovered, a very low recovery rate of 0.037%.
A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a "bouquet", "confusion", "fall", and "wrench" of warblers.

The Northern Waterthrush has an enormous range reaching up to roughly 7,600,000 square kilometers. This bird can be found across Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin and parts of South America. There are also populations in the UK, France and even French Polynesia. It prefers an ecological system ranging from forest and shrub lands to wetlands. The global population of this bird is estimated to be around 13,000,000 individual birds. Currently, it is not believed that the population trends for this bird will soon approach the minimum levels that could suggest a potential decline in population. Due to this, population trends for the Northern Waterthrush have a present evaluation level of Least Concern.