The wood thrush prefers deciduous and mixed forests for breeding. It prefers late-successional, upland mesic forests with a moderately-dense shrub layer. Robert I. Bertin (1977) found that this thrush favors areas with running water, moist ground, and high understorey cover. The breeding habitat generally includes trees taller than , a fairly open forest floor, moist soil, and leaf litter, with substrate moisture more important than either canopy cover or access to running water. The wood thrush can breed in habitat patches as small as , but it runs the risk of higher predation and nest parasitism. The wood thrush's breeding range has expanded northward, displacing the veery and hermit thrush in some locations. In recent times, as a result of fragmentation of forests, it has been increasingly exposed to