waterthrush return

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Louisiana Waterthrush (Parkesia motacilla)

Reports are that Louisiana waterthrushes are back in Tennessee, which certainly means they're back home in the Bayou State as well.

These secretive creek-loving passerines winter in Mexico, Central America, Cuba and the Caribbean, plus as far south as northern Colombia and Venezuela. They're preferred habitat is forested streams and there must be lots of those in the tropics.

We owe their beautiful name to American-Frenchman/artist John James Audubon, before he changed it to honor his favorite state—État de Louisiane—the species was known as an aquatic wagtail. (Yes, they love water and, yes, they have the nervous habit of bobbing their tails.)

Although the waterthrush may look like a thrush or even a stylized sparrow, they are, indeed, wood warblers.

A good place to find one as it migrants through is the stream that drains the Homesite pond at Ijams Nature Center. Naturalist Emily Boves found one there last spring.


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