It is a long distance migratory species that breeds at remote sites in northern Canada and winters in southern South America.

The specific haemastica is from Ancient Greek and means "bloody".The English term "godwit" is believed to imitate the bird's call.

The Hudsonian godwit was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[2] Linnaeus based his entry on the "red-breasted godwit" that had been described and illustrated in 1750 by the English naturalist George Edwards in the third volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

[4] The Hudsonian godwit is now one of four species placed in the genus Limosa that was introduced in 1760 by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

Their breeding habitat is the far north near the tree line in northwestern Canada and Alaska, also on the shores of Hudson Bay.