Migration and timing

What this section covers, and what it does not

We cover the part of migration that involves your feeder: when to hang it, when to take it down, and roughly when to expect birds in your region.

We do not publish live sightings data and will not pretend to. Real-time maps exist and they are built from years of user-submitted reports — Hummingbird Central runs the best-known one. We have no sightings feed and no contributor network, so anything we published claiming to show where the birds are right now would be invented. That is not modesty, it is the same rule that governs every other page here.

The seasonal shape

In the east, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds arrive in numbers along the Gulf Coast by early March and filter northward over the following two months, reaching northern states and southern Canadian provinces by late April or early May. Migrating males usually arrive about a week before females at any given location.

In the Mountain West, Broad-tailed, Black-chinned and Calliope hummingbirds appear near the Mexican border from early March and reach the northern Rockies by early to mid May. On the West Coast, Rufous Hummingbirds are as far north as Oregon by the end of February, while Anna’s and Allen’s are year-round residents — meaning coastal California has no season to time, just a feeder that has to stay clean all year. Regional windows in full.

Both errors are asymmetric, which decides the rule

Hanging the feeder two weeks early costs you a couple of nectar changes on an empty feeder — a few cents and four minutes. Hanging it two weeks late means the first arrivals pass through a yard with nothing in it, at the point in the year when natural nectar is scarcest and they have just flown a very long way.

The same asymmetry runs in reverse in fall. Migration is staggered: birds that bred in your yard leave before the ones that bred further north pass through it, and those late travelers arrive to find most feeders already taken down. Two weeks after your last sighting is the rule that handles it.

Season is not a reason to relax the schedule

Cool spring and fall weather does slow fermentation, so the change interval sits at the longer end — every four to five days rather than daily. It does not stop. And a feeder coming out of the shed needs a full wash before it is filled, because last season’s residue is still in the ports. The method.