The Northern Waterthrush is a streaked bird that walks along wetland edges in search of small aquatic animals.
It has brown upperparts and dark streaks running down its pale underparts, and is often seen walking near water.
Northern Waterthrushes winter in the Caribbean and northern South America and breed across eastern North America. At Jobos Bay in southeastern Puerto Rico, researchers fitted 40 birds with light-level tags from September 2015 through April 2016. Eleven tags were recovered the following year, and nine contained usable migration records.
The records showed birds leaving Puerto Rico, stopping in the northern Greater Antilles, and then moving north along the Atlantic coast. Mean departure was April 24 and mean arrival at breeding sites was May 17, an estimated spring journey of about 23 days. Some breeding-location estimates were uncertain, while changes in daylight also revealed migration timing and nesting behavior.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Tracking linked Puerto Rico wintering birds with breeding areas as far north as Quebec. Light records also revealed average spring migration timing and nesting behavior.