25 Hummingbirds You Might See in North American Gardens
From the Ruby-throat that visits half the continent to rarities that send birders racing for their cameras, here is how to tell them apart and where each one turns up.
Hummingbirds live only in the Americas. There are more than 360 species, and the great majority never leave the tropics. Mexico has more than fifty. About fifteen nest regularly in the United States and Canada, and a further handful wander across the border often enough to be worth knowing.
Where you live decides almost everything. East of the Mississippi, nearly every hummingbird you see is a Ruby-throat. Go west and south and the list grows quickly, with the mountain canyons of southeastern Arizona the capital of them all. A single feeder there can host eight species in an August afternoon.
Identification starts with the adult male, whose throat patch, called a gorget, flashes one brilliant color when the light hits it and looks black when it does not. Females and young birds are mostly green above and pale below, and for them you look at size, bill shape, tail pattern and any rusty color on the flanks.
We have ordered these from the most widespread to the rarest visitors, ending with a few garden birds of Mexico and the Caribbean that any traveling birder should know.
Read all the way to the end. We save the smallest bird on Earth for last.
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Common
1. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Photo: James Wainscoat / Unsplash Have you seen one?The only hummingbird that nests in the eastern United States and eastern Canada. The male has an emerald back, a black chin and a ruby throat that looks black in poor light. The female is white below with white tips to her outer tail feathers.
It is about three and a half inches long and weighs three grams, a little more than a penny. Most winter from southern Mexico to Panama, and many cross the Gulf of Mexico in one flight of about 500 miles.
AdvertisementThe bird at an Ohio feeder in May may have been in Costa Rica in March.
Where to lookAny garden east of the Great Plains, from April to October. Woodland edges, orchards and yards with bee balm or trumpet creeper are best. -
Common
2. Black-chinned Hummingbird
Photo: Alexander Rotker / Unsplash Have you seen one?The western counterpart of the Ruby-throat and its closest relative. The male's throat is velvety black with a thin band of violet along the lower edge that shows only in good light. The female is almost identical to a female Ruby-throat, though she pumps her tail steadily as she hovers.
It is three and a half inches long and weighs a little over three grams. It breeds from British Columbia to Texas and northern Mexico, arriving in April and leaving by September, and it is the most adaptable hummingbird in the West.
AdvertisementWhere to lookTexas to the Pacific states, often along rivers lined with cottonwood and willow, and in towns and suburbs. -
Common
3. Anna's Hummingbird
Photo: Zdeněk Macháček / Unsplash Have you seen one?A stocky, gray-green bird with a straight, shortish bill. The male's whole head, crown as well as throat, glows rose-pink. The female has a small patch of pink spots at the center of her throat. At four inches and more than four grams, it is larger than most of its neighbors.
Anna's does not migrate in the usual sense. It lives all year on the Pacific coast, nests as early as December and sings a scratchy song from a high perch. A century ago it was confined to California and Baja. Garden plants and feeders have carried it north to British Columbia.
Where to lookGardens from Arizona and California north to British Columbia, in every season, including winter.Advertisement -
Common
4. Rufous Hummingbird
Photo: Steve Harvey / Unsplash Have you seen one?The male is unmistakable: bright rusty orange on the back, flanks and tail, with a throat that flashes orange-red. The female is green above with rusty flanks and rust at the base of the tail. It is three and a half inches long and famously aggressive, driving larger species off feeders.
It nests farther north than any other hummingbird, reaching southern Alaska, and winters mainly in Mexico. The trip is about 3,900 miles each way. Birds travel north up the Pacific coast in early spring and return south along the Rocky Mountains from July.
Measured in body lengths, no bird on Earth makes a longer journey.
Where to lookThe Northwest in summer, and feeders across the West during migration. Small numbers now winter along the Gulf Coast. -
Common
5. Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Photo: Candi Foltz / Unsplash Have you seen one?A mountain species, four inches long. The male has a green crown and back and a rose-red throat. The female has buff flanks and a little rust in the tail, and is larger than a Calliope.
AdvertisementYou usually hear the male first. Narrow tips on his outer wing feathers make a loud, metallic trill whenever he flies, like a tiny cricket passing overhead. It breeds in meadows and open pine and aspen woods up to 10,000 feet from Idaho to Arizona, where it survives freezing summer nights by going torpid.
Where to lookRocky Mountain meadows and foothill gardens from May to August. Listen for the trill before you look. -
Regional
6. Allen's Hummingbird
Photo: Richard Sagredo / Unsplash Have you seen one?Very like the Rufous, and the two are close relatives. The adult male Allen's has a green back with a rusty rump and tail. Females and young of the two species cannot be told apart in the field, even by experts, without examining the tail feathers.
It nests only in the fog belt along the Pacific, from southern Oregon to southern California, and is one of the earliest migrants on the continent. Males arrive from Mexico in January. A separate population lives all year on the Channel Islands and around Los Angeles.
AdvertisementWhere to lookCoastal California gardens from late winter to midsummer, and year-round in the Los Angeles basin. -
Regional
7. Costa's Hummingbird
Photo: Zdeněk Macháček / Unsplash Have you seen one?A small, hunched desert hummingbird, barely over three inches, with a short tail. The male's crown and throat are deep violet, and the throat feathers flare far out to the sides like a drooping mustache. The female is plain gray-green above and clean white below.
It lives in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts and nests early, from February to April, when ocotillo and chuparosa bloom. When the heat sets in, most birds leave for the cooler coast. The male's display call is a thin, rising whistle, almost too high to hear.
Where to lookDesert gardens and washes in southern Arizona and southern California, mainly in late winter and spring.Advertisement -
Regional
8. Calliope Hummingbird
Photo: AARN GIRI / Unsplash Have you seen one?The smallest bird that breeds in the United States and Canada: three and a quarter inches long and about two and a half grams, or a tenth of an ounce. The male's throat is not solid but streaked, with magenta rays on a white ground. The female is tiny and short-tailed, with a peach wash on the flanks.
It nests in mountain meadows and regrowing forest from British Columbia to California and Utah and winters in southwestern Mexico. It is the smallest long-distance migrant bird in the world.
A bird that weighs less than a sheet of paper flies some 5,000 miles a year.
Where to lookMountain areas of the Northwest from May to August, often low in willow thickets near streams. -
Regional
9. Broad-billed Hummingbird
Photo: Zdeněk Macháček / Unsplash Have you seen one?One of the most colorful hummingbirds north of Mexico. The male is deep emerald green with a sapphire-blue throat, a notched blue-black tail and a bright red bill tipped with black. The female is gray below with a white line behind the eye and a reddish base to the bill.
AdvertisementIt is four inches long and chatters like a kinglet. A Mexican species, it enters the United States in the canyons and mesquite foothills of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Most arrive in March and leave in September, though a few stay through winter.
Where to lookFeeders and streamside sycamores in southern Arizona and New Mexico, especially around Tucson and Patagonia. -
Regional
10. Buff-bellied Hummingbird
Photo: Zdeněk Macháček / Unsplash Have you seen one?A sturdy, four-and-a-quarter-inch bird in which the sexes look alike: bronze-green above, glittering green on the throat and breast, warm buff on the belly, with a rusty tail and a red bill tipped in black.
It is the regular hummingbird of far south Texas, at home in thorn scrub, citrus groves and gardens full of Turk's cap. Its travels run opposite to those of most hummingbirds. After nesting, some birds move north and east along the Gulf Coast for the winter, reaching Louisiana and occasionally the Florida Panhandle.
AdvertisementWhere to lookThe lower Rio Grande Valley all year, and the Gulf Coast from Texas to Louisiana in winter. -
Southwest
11. Rivoli's Hummingbird
Photo: Philip Brown / Unsplash Have you seen one?Large, dark and long-billed, at more than five inches and seven to eight grams, roughly twice the weight of a Black-chinned. The male looks black until the light catches his purple crown and emerald throat. The female is green above and gray below with a white spot behind the eye.
Its wingbeats are slow enough to see, and it often glides. It lives in pine and oak forest at 5,000 to 9,000 feet. Until 2017 it was called the Magnificent Hummingbird. The current name honors the Duke of Rivoli, whose wife gave her name to Anna's.
Where to lookMountain canyons of southeastern Arizona, such as Madera, Ramsey and Cave Creek, from April to October.Advertisement -
Southwest
12. Blue-throated Mountain-gem
Photo: Shur Shu / Unsplash Have you seen one?The largest hummingbird that nests in the United States: five inches long and about eight grams, roughly two and a half times the weight of a Ruby-throat. Both sexes are plain gray below with two white stripes on the face and a big blue-black tail with broad white corners. Only the male has the blue throat.
It is loud, giving a piercing seep from shaded perches, and it dominates every feeder. The fastest heart rate measured in any bird, about 1,260 beats a minute, was recorded from this species.
Its heart can beat twenty-one times in a single second.
Where to lookShady canyon streams in the Chiricahua and Huachuca Mountains of Arizona and the Chisos Mountains of west Texas. -
Southwest
13. Violet-crowned Hummingbird
Photo: Hugo Brightling / Unsplash Have you seen one?The easiest of the Arizona specialties to identify. It is the only hummingbird in the United States with entirely snow-white underparts, from chin to tail, with no colored throat patch at all. The crown is violet-blue, the back bronze-brown, and the long bill bright red with a black tip. Males and females look alike.
AdvertisementIt is four and a half inches long and nests almost exclusively in tall Arizona sycamores along streams, in a few canyons close to the Mexican border. Most arrive in spring and nest during the summer rains.
Where to lookA few canyons and feeders in southern Arizona, above all around the town of Patagonia, and Guadalupe Canyon on the New Mexico line. -
Southwest
14. Lucifer Hummingbird
Photo: Paul Crook / Unsplash Have you seen one?The name means light-bearer and refers to the male's long, flaring purple throat. Both sexes have a noticeably down-curved bill, rare among hummingbirds north of Mexico. The male has a narrow, deeply forked tail he usually holds closed. The female is warm buff below with a dusky cheek stripe.
It is a small bird of desert slopes, about three and a half inches long, tied closely to flowering agaves and ocotillo in the Chihuahuan Desert. Males display by shuttling back and forth in front of females at the nest itself, which is unusual among hummingbirds.
AdvertisementWhere to lookThe Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park in Texas, and a few feeders in the Arizona and New Mexico borderlands, March to September. -
Southwest
15. White-eared Hummingbird
Photo: Joshua J. Cotten / Unsplash Have you seen one?A common bird of Mexico's mountain pine and oak forests that barely reaches the United States. The mark to look for is a broad, bold white stripe behind the eye, set off by a black cheek. The male has a violet and green head and a red bill tipped with black. The female is spotted with green along her sides.
It is small, under four inches, with a short, straight bill. Broad-billed females also show a pale line behind the eye, but theirs is thinner and grayer, and they live lower down.
Where to lookA scarce summer visitor, June to September, to the Huachuca, Chiricahua and Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona.Advertisement -
Southwest
16. Berylline Hummingbird
Photo: Bryan Hanson / Unsplash Have you seen one?Named for beryl, the mineral family that includes emerald. The head, throat and breast are glittering apple green, and the wings show a large chestnut patch in flight, which no other hummingbird in the United States has. The rump and tail are chestnut with a purple sheen. Females are slightly duller with a grayer belly.
It is four inches long and common in the oak foothills of western Mexico. A few cross the border in most summers, and pairs have nested in Arizona's canyons several times.
Where to lookAn occasional visitor to the mountains of southeastern Arizona between June and August, usually at canyon feeders. -
Rare visitor
17. Plain-capped Starthroat
Photo: Logan Voss / Unsplash Have you seen one?A large hummingbird, nearly five inches long, with a remarkably long, straight black bill. It is dull bronze above and gray below. Look for a white stripe behind the eye, a white whisker mark and a white patch on the rump that shows clearly as the bird flies away. The dark red throat is hard to see.
AdvertisementIt nests in the dry forest of western Mexico, and a few drift north after breeding. It spends much of its time flycatching from high bare twigs, sallying out over streams, and visits feeders only briefly.
Where to lookSouthern Arizona between late June and September, at feeders and along streams in the foothill canyons. -
Rare visitor
18. Mexican Violetear
Have you seen one?A wanderer from the highlands of Mexico and Central America. It is four and a half inches long and dark green all over, with a violet-blue patch on each cheek and another on the breast, and a blue-green tail crossed by a dark band. Males and females are alike. Until 2016 it was known as the Green Violetear.
It has no fixed migration but disperses widely after nesting, and a few overshoot. It has been recorded in more than twenty states and in Canada.
AdvertisementNo tropical hummingbird has turned up in more unlikely places.
Where to lookCould show up almost anywhere in the East or Midwest in summer. Most records come from the Texas Hill Country between May and August. -
Rare visitor
19. Green-breasted Mango
Have you seen one?A big tropical hummingbird, close to five inches, with a thick, slightly curved black bill. The adult male is deep green with a black stripe down the throat and a glowing magenta-purple tail. Most birds that reach the United States are youngsters, which are white below with a dark stripe down the center, edged with rust.
It lives in open country and gardens from eastern Mexico southward. Strays reach the lower Rio Grande Valley in most years, and single birds have turned up as far away as North Carolina, Georgia and Wisconsin.
Where to lookSouth Texas, mainly in fall and winter, at feeders in the lower Rio Grande Valley and along the coast.Advertisement -
Rare visitor
20. Bahama Woodstar
Have you seen one?A small hummingbird, about three and a half inches, found only in the Bahamas, where it is common in gardens and scrub. The male has a magenta-purple throat bordered below by a white collar, rusty underparts and a deeply forked tail. The female lacks the throat color and has a rounded tail with cinnamon corners.
It is the only hummingbird on most Bahamian islands. Southeastern Florida lies less than a hundred miles away, yet the bird has crossed only a handful of times.
Where to lookA few records from southeastern Florida. In the Bahamas it comes readily to garden flowers on nearly every island. -
Rare visitor
21. Xantus's Hummingbird
Have you seen one?Found only in the southern half of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. It is three and a half inches long with a bold white stripe behind the eye, a black cheek, a cinnamon belly, a chestnut tail and a red bill tipped with black. The male has a green throat. The female is cinnamon from chin to tail.
AdvertisementIt is named for John Xantus, a Hungarian collector who worked in Baja around 1860. It almost never leaves home, yet strays have reached southern California and, astonishingly, British Columbia.
Where to lookGardens and desert scrub around La Paz and the Cape region of Baja. North of the border it is one of the rarest birds on the list. -
Mexico
22. Cinnamon Hummingbird
Have you seen one?One of the common garden hummingbirds of western Mexico, and easy to name. It is bronze-green above and entirely cinnamon below, from the chin to the tip of its rusty tail, with a red bill tipped in black. Males and females look alike. It is about four inches long.
It lives in dry forest, thorn scrub and towns along the Pacific slope from Sinaloa to Costa Rica, and on the Yucatan Peninsula. It is bold and noisy and defends flowering trees against all comers.
AdvertisementWhere to lookHotel gardens and town plazas in western Mexico and the Yucatan. It has reached Arizona and New Mexico only a few times. -
Mexico
23. Bumblebee Hummingbird
Have you seen one?One of the tiniest birds in the world, about two and three quarter inches long and only a little over two grams. The male has a flared magenta throat. The female has rusty flanks and rust at the base of the tail.
It lives only in Mexico, in the pine, oak and cloud forests of the highlands, usually above 5,000 feet. It flies slowly, with a low insect hum, and that is its strategy. Larger hummingbirds take it for a bee and ignore it while it feeds inside their territories.
Where to lookHighland gardens and flowery forest clearings in western and southern Mexico, at shrubby salvias close to the ground.Advertisement -
Caribbean
24. Cuban Emerald
Have you seen one?A slim, long-tailed hummingbird, about four inches long. The male is glittering green all over with a dark, deeply forked tail and a small white spot behind the eye. The female is gray below with green sides and a shallower fork.
It is the everyday hummingbird of Cuba, common from sea level to the mountains in forests, farms and city parks, and it also lives on Grand Bahama, Abaco and Andros in the northern Bahamas. Visitors usually see one within an hour of arriving.
Where to lookGardens throughout Cuba and on the northern Bahamian pine islands. Sightings have been reported from Florida, though none is firmly documented. -
Caribbean
25. Bee Hummingbird
Have you seen one?The smallest bird on Earth. It is about two and a quarter inches long, and the male weighs under two grams, less than a dime. In breeding plumage his whole head and throat turn fiery red, with long plumes at the sides, above a blue back. The slightly larger female is blue-green above and pale gray below with white tail tips.
AdvertisementIt lives only in Cuba, where it is called the zunzuncito. The nest is about an inch across and the eggs are the size of coffee beans.
Its nest would fit inside a bottle cap, with room for two eggs.
Where to lookCertain gardens in Cuba are famous for it, chiefly around the Zapata Peninsula, where owners have fed them for years.
The short version
In the East, learn the Ruby-throat thoroughly, male and female, and you have learned almost every hummingbird you will see between April and October. In the West, start with Anna's, Black-chinned and Rufous, then add Broad-tailed and Calliope if you live in or near the mountains, and Costa's if you garden in the desert.
For the rest, there is one place to go. The canyons of southeastern Arizona hold more hummingbird species in summer than the remainder of the United States combined, and many of the best feeders there are open to visitors. A week in late July or August can add ten species to your list.
And if a hummingbird at your own feeder looks wrong for your area or your season, especially between October and March, take a photo before you do anything else. Note the bill, the tail and any rust on the flanks, and send it to your state bird records committee or local Audubon chapter. Rare ones turn up in ordinary backyards every year, and it is usually a gardener who finds them.
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