Geographic Range
In the breeding season, the Northern Waterthrush is found in a belt stretching from north central Alaska, east across all of the Canadian provinces. In the winter season, the species is found in the tropical mangroves of Central and South America.
- Biogeographic Regions
- nearctic
- neotropical
Habitat
The Northern Waterthrush prefers cool, dark, wooded swamps, thickets of bogs, margins of northern lakes, and willow and alder bordered rivers. During the spring and fall migration, the bird can be found in thick cover along streams, in marshes, and by stagnant pools.
- Terrestrial Biomes
- forest
- rainforest
- Aquatic Biomes
- lakes and ponds
- rivers and streams
Physical Description
The Northern Waterthrush is a large, ground walking warbler with a brown back and a white or yellowish streaked breast. The breast, sides, and flanks are streaked with a dark olive or black. There is an olive-colored triangular spot in the front of the eye and a crescent shaped mark on the lower eyelid. The throat is also covered with small triangular marks.
- Other Physical Features
- endothermic
- bilateral symmetry
Reproduction
Pair bonding begins immediately after the female arrives on the breeding site. Males perch in trees that are standing near water while females are below usually feeding along the edge of the water. Males vibrate their wings and raise their crown feathers and sing. The female may answer with a chink. The pair bond is broken shortly after successful fledging. The male selects the general area of the nesting site, but the female chooses the actual nest site. Nests are usually in the cavity of a root system of wind-blown trees in a wooded swamp, on the side of a fern clump or under cover along the banks of a lake or a river. There is typically covering above the nest and an opening to one side. The exterior of the nest is mainly moss and liverwort gametophytes. The interior of the nest cup is constructed with grass stems, twigs, or pine needles, and then lined with the hair of deer, caribou, cow, and rabbit. Average clutch is composed of four white ovate eggs spotted with browns and greys. The female is solely responsible for incubation, which lasts 12 days. Both parents, however, share feeding responsibilities. After four to five weeks the chicks begin feeding themselves.
- Key Reproductive Features
- iteroparous
- gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
- sexual
- oviparous
Lifespan/Longevity
Behavior
The Northern Waterthrush is solitary before pair formation, then forms family groups after the young depart from the nest. The bird is an annual migrant to the West Indies and Central and South America. Migrations are made in loosely associated flocks that fly at night. The bird is seldom agressive towards other species; however, it has a strong reaction to the song of the Kirtland's Warbler.
- Key Behaviors
- flies
- motile
Communication and Perception
Food Habits
During the breeding season, the basic diet consists of larval and adult insects, spiders, and snails. After leaf emergence in the spring, the bird feeds on primarily on butterfly larvae. On the winter grounds, the bird consumes a greater variety of food, adding minnows and decapod crustaceans to its diet. The Northern Waterthrush forages alone using such tactics as twig gleaning, flycatching, hovering, chasing, and a lot of pecking. Microhabitats for foraging include water, ground, foilage, and air. Before leaf emergence, the Waterthrush typically spends about 75% of the time feeding in water, alternating between wading and walking along logs, on branches, and the water's edge.
Economic Importance for Humans: Positive
Feed on insects that are regarded as pests to humans.
Economic Importance for Humans: Negative
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Conservation Status
Degradation of habitat and pesticides are the biggest threats facing the species. Northern Waterthrush populations, however, have managed to remain stable despite these threats. Drainage of swamps for agriculture and wetland development into ponds or lakes may reduce breeding habitat. Pesticides are also affecting the Northern Waterthrush. Aerial spraying for the spruce budworm can kill the birds directly or reduce the biomass of their prey.
Other Comments
Most bird watchers only see the Northern Waterthrush in backyards, city parks, and wet places when the bird is en route to the tropical mangroves of Central and South America
Additional Links
Contributors
Marie S. Harris (author), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
- Nearctic
-
living in the Nearctic biogeographic province, the northern part of the New World. This includes Greenland, the Canadian Arctic islands, and all of the North American as far south as the highlands of central Mexico.
- native range
-
the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.
- Neotropical
-
living in the southern part of the New World. In other words, Central and South America.
- native range
-
the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.
- forest
-
forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.
- rainforest
-
rainforests, both temperate and tropical, are dominated by trees often forming a closed canopy with little light reaching the ground. Epiphytes and climbing plants are also abundant. Precipitation is typically not limiting, but may be somewhat seasonal.
- motile
-
having the capacity to move from one place to another.
- endothermic
-
animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.
- bilateral symmetry
-
having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.
- iteroparous
-
offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).
- sexual
-
reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female
- oviparous
-
reproduction in which eggs are released by the female; development of offspring occurs outside the mother's body.
- visual
-
uses sight to communicate
- tactile
-
uses touch to communicate
- acoustic
-
uses sound to communicate
- chemical
-
uses smells or other chemicals to communicate
References
Eaton, Stephen, W.. The Birds of North America, No. 182, 1995.