The Hudsonian Godwit has long legs and a long, slightly upturned bill. It is reddish in breeding plumage and gray-brown outside the breeding season.
Breeding plumage mixes gold, brown, and brick red. Outside breeding season it becomes subdued gray-brown; the long bill curves slightly upward.
It walks through northern wetlands and tidal flats, probing deep into mud for small invertebrates. After breeding it migrates from the subarctic to near the southern tip of South America.
The female selects a ground scrape, often made by the male. A nest on a dry hummock in sedge marsh is sparsely lined with plants and twigs and holds 2–4 eggs. Chicks are downy, and both parents defend the nest and tend them until fledging.
Food includes insect larvae, earthworms, marine worms, small molluscs and fiddler crabs. Migrants also grasp and twist out plant tubers, and eat berries and seeds.
The white tail has a broad black terminal band. The axillary feathers are blackish and the upperwing has a narrow white stripe. Pale feather edges give juveniles a scaly-looking back.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.