Parkesia motacilla
Order Passeriformes
Family Parulidae
Adult.— Upper parts grayish-brown; line over the eye pure white; under parts white, tinged in strong light with buffy; throat unspotted; breast and flanks streaked with black.
Nest, placed under the bank of a stream or under the roots of an overturned tree.
Eggs, white, spotted with reddish-brown.
The Louisiana Water-thrush is a summer resident of Berkshire County, Mass., of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the lower Hudson Valley. It is rare in Berkshire County, local in Rhode Island and northern Connecticut, but fairly common in southern Connecticut and along the Hudson; it even penetrates the Catskills, following the mountain streams. It arrives in the middle of April, often a fortnight before the northern species [Northern Waterthrush], and leaves before September. Though it does to some extent frequent swampy woods and sluggish woodland streams, as at Englewood, N. J., yet its favorite haunts are clear mountain brooks, where it trips over the stones, or utters its wild ringing song from the branches of the overhanging trees. Like its relative, it has a habit of wagging the tail as it walks.
During May, both the northern and the southern species occur in southern New England and the Hudson Valley. The southern species may then be distinguished by the pure white line over the eye and by the unspotted throat. Its song, generally described as wilder than that of the northern species, and the call-note, may both be distinguished by a practiced ear, but a beginner must depend for identification either on the time of year, or on the white line over the eye and the unspotted throat. A Water-thrush seen in southern New England or New York between the tenth of June and the first of August will, almost undoubtedly, be the southern species.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)