Identification
Hummingbird Identification
In most of the eastern United States there is one breeding hummingbird and the answer is Ruby-throated. West of the Great Plains you need gorget shape, tail pattern, wing sound and the calendar, and even then some birds cannot be named.
The short answer
- Start with where you are. East of the Great Plains, Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only regular breeding species, and a summer hummingbird there needs no further work.
- Gorget color depends entirely on the angle of the light, so judge the shape and extent of the gorget rather than the color you happen to be seeing.
- Adult male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds produce a loud metallic wing trill that identifies them before you see the bird.
- Anna's is the only common species in which the male's iridescence covers the crown as well as the throat.
- Female and immature hummingbirds are frequently not identifiable at a feeder, and female Rufous and Allen's essentially never are outside the hand.
- A hummingbird in the East in November or December is likely a western vagrant, and the right response is to keep the feeder up and report it.
Hummingbird identification has an unusual shape. For roughly half the readers of this page it is not a problem at all, because east of the Great Plains there is exactly one hummingbird that breeds, and any hummingbird at an eastern feeder between April and September is a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. No marks required, no comparison needed.
For the other half it is one of the harder identification problems in backyard birding. The western species overlap in range and season, the males differ in ways that vanish the moment the light changes, and the females and immatures of several species are separated in the hand by measurements of individual tail feathers that you cannot see from a kitchen window.
So this page works region first, then male by male, then it is honest about where the females stop. If you are unsure which family you are looking at, the identification hub will sort that out before you start here.
Start with your region#
Range does more work here than any plumage mark. Before you compare a single feather, narrow the field with geography and the calendar.
| Where you are | Regularly expected species | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| East of the Great Plains | Ruby-throated | The only regular breeding hummingbird. Western strays appear mainly in late fall and winter. |
| Texas and the southern Great Plains | Ruby-throated, Black-chinned, plus migrants | The two overlap here and are the hardest routine pair in the country. |
| Pacific coast, California to British Columbia | Anna's, Allen's (coastal California and southern Oregon), Rufous on migration, Black-chinned inland | Anna's is resident year-round through much of this zone. |
| Pacific Northwest and interior Northwest | Rufous, Anna's, Calliope, Black-chinned | Rufous breeds farther north than any other hummingbird. |
| Rocky Mountains and the Interior West | Broad-tailed, Black-chinned, Calliope, Rufous in late summer | Broad-tailed is the mountain default in summer. |
| Desert Southwest and southern Arizona | Anna's, Costa's, Black-chinned, Broad-billed, Rufous on migration | The richest hummingbird area in the country, and the only place several species are routine. |
Region first, gorget second
Most misidentifications happen because someone matched a plate before checking whether that species has ever occurred where they live. Establish the short list your location and date allow, then work within it. A Rufous Hummingbird in Ohio in July is far less likely than a young male Ruby-throated with rusty-looking flanks in bad light.
East of the Great Plains: it is a Ruby-throated#
The adult male has a gorget that burns ruby to fire-orange in direct light and reads as flat black at almost every other angle, a metallic green back and crown, a grayish-white breast and a forked black tail with no white tips. The female and immature have a plain whitish throat, sometimes with faint dusky streaking or a few isolated dark spots, a green back and white tips to the outer tail feathers.
The complication in the East is not another species, it is a moth. Hummingbird clearwing and white-lined sphinx moths hover at the same flowers at dusk, and they generate a steady stream of reports. They have antennae, six legs and no bill, and they are smaller than they look. Almost every eastern hummingbird sighting from a state with no western records is either a Ruby-throated or a sphinx moth.
The western species, mark by mark#
Adult males only in this table. Females and immatures are dealt with separately below, because the honest answer for many of them is different.
| Species | Male gorget | Other marks | Where and when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna's | Rose-magenta covering the throat and the entire crown, flaring at the corners | Stocky, grayish-green below, large-headed; sings a scratchy grating song from a perch | Pacific states year-round, expanding inland and north |
| Black-chinned | Black throat with a narrow iridescent violet band along the lower edge, often looking wholly black | Dull green back, whitish underparts; pumps and wags the tail almost constantly while hovering | Widespread western breeder, deserts to canyons to suburbs |
| Rufous | Orange-red, flaring into points at the sides | Bright rufous back, flanks and tail; some adult males show green on the back | Breeds Pacific Northwest to Alaska, migrates through the mountains |
| Allen's | Orange-red, essentially identical to Rufous | Solid green back on the adult male, rufous flanks and tail | Narrow coastal strip of California and southern Oregon |
| Broad-tailed | Rose-magenta, fairly even across the throat | Bright green back and flanks; adult male wings make a loud metallic trill | Rocky Mountain and Great Basin conifer and meadow country in summer |
| Calliope | Magenta rays or streaks on a white ground, forming a striped rather than solid gorget | The smallest bird in the United States; wingtips reach or pass the tail tip at rest | Northwest mountains in summer, migrates through the Rockies |
| Costa's | Deep violet covering the crown and flaring far down the sides in long points | Small, short-tailed, compact | Sonoran and Mojave desert, southern California and Arizona |
| Broad-billed | Deep blue throat blending into a green breast | Bright red bill with a black tip, blue-black tail | Southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico canyons |
Gorgets: shape matters, color lies#
A gorget is not pigmented in the way a cardinal's red is. It is structural color produced by layered platelets in the feathers, which means it is directional. Turn a few degrees off the axis and a blazing magenta throat goes flat black. This is the single largest source of hummingbird identification error, and it cuts both ways: people call a black-looking throat a Black-chinned when it is an unlit Ruby-throated, and people upgrade a briefly flashing throat to whatever species they hoped for.
Work on shape and extent instead, because those do not change with the light.
- Does the color reach up over the crown? Only Anna's does that routinely among the common species, and Costa's does it in violet.
- Does the gorget flare down and out into long pointed corners? Costa's is extreme, Rufous and Allen's are moderate, Ruby-throated and Broad-tailed are comparatively even-edged.
- Is the throat striped rather than solid? Calliope's magenta rays on white are unlike anything else.
- Is there a thin band of color at the very bottom of an otherwise black throat? That is Black-chinned, and it needs good light to see at all.
Watch a perched bird for thirty seconds
Hummingbirds perch far more than people expect, often on a bare twig within sight of the feeder. A perched bird turning its head runs the gorget through every angle for you, and it gives you a still tail and a chance to judge bill length and body proportions. Almost every difficult identification that succeeds happens on a perched bird, not a hovering one.
Wing sound and tail pattern#
Sound is genuinely diagnostic in one case. Adult male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds produce a loud, high, metallic, cricket-like trill from the wingtips in flight, audible across a meadow and unlike the soft hum of every other species. In the Rocky Mountains in summer, that trill names the bird before you have seen it. Immature and female Broad-tailed do not make it, so its absence proves nothing.
The rest of wing sound is subtler and worth less. Male Ruby-throated wings produce a higher-pitched buzz than the duller, lower hum of a male Black-chinned, but the two species rarely need separating outside a narrow zone in Texas and the southern plains, and the difference is not something to build a record on. Male Anna's and Costa's both make sharp sounds during dive displays, and a Costa's display includes a long, thin, falling whistle.
Tail pattern is more useful and is what banders rely on. The details worth trying for from a window are whether the outer tail feathers have white tips, which most female and immature hummingbirds show, and whether the tail carries rufous at the base, which points toward Rufous or Allen's. A spread tail on a bird backing away from a feeder port is the moment to have a camera ready.
Females and immatures: the honest limits#
This is where most hummingbird guides quietly stop being useful. Female and immature hummingbirds of several western species are green above and pale below with white-tipped outer tail feathers, and they differ in bill length, tail proportions, the amount and placement of buff on the flanks, and the width and notching of individual tail feathers. Several of those characters overlap between species.
What that means in practice:
- Female Ruby-throated and female Black-chinned are not reliably separable in the field. Their breeding ranges barely overlap, so location usually answers it, but a migrant in the overlap zone often cannot be named.
- Female and immature Rufous and Allen's are essentially never separable at a feeder. Separation depends on the width and shape of specific tail feathers, measured on a bird in the hand by a licensed bander. Rufous or Allen's Hummingbird is the correct entry for these birds, and experienced observers use it constantly.
- Immature male hummingbirds acquire gorget feathers gradually, so a bird with three scattered iridescent spots on a pale throat is a young male and its species may not yet be readable.
- Female Anna's is one of the easier ones, since she usually shows a patch of red iridescence in the center of an otherwise gray throat and is bulkier than the others.
- Female Broad-tailed and female Calliope in the Interior West are a recognized problem pair, separated largely on size, bill length and tail proportions, and plenty are left unidentified.
Leaving a bird as hummingbird species is not a failure. It is the accurate record, and it is more useful to any project you contribute to than a confident guess would be. The habit is discussed further in citizen science at the feeder.
The late autumn vagrant in the East#
Every fall, hummingbirds turn up at eastern feeders weeks after the last Ruby-throated should have gone. These are usually western species, most often Rufous, which has a well documented pattern of wintering in the Gulf states and the Southeast, and occasionally Allen's, Calliope, Black-chinned, Anna's or Broad-billed. They are not lost birds that will die if left alone, and they are not doing anything abnormal.
The right response is short:
- Keep the feeder up. Nectar does not hold a bird in place. Hummingbird migration is triggered by day length and internal timing, not by food supply, so a full feeder cannot make a bird stay too long. The reasoning is set out in when to take down hummingbird feeders.
- Keep the nectar fresh and correct at four parts water to one part white sugar, following the hummingbird nectar recipe and no substitutions.
- Deal with freezing. Nectar starts to slush below about 27°F (-3°C). Rotate two feeders, bringing one indoors overnight and swapping at first light, or fit a small clip-on light or feeder heater. A saucer-style feeder freezes more slowly than a narrow-tubed one and thaws faster.
- Photograph it, including a spread tail if you can, and report it to eBird. Many states have licensed hummingbird banders who will travel to identify and band a winter bird, and a photograph is often enough to get that started.
- Do not try to catch it, warm it or move it. Winter vagrants survive routinely, and handling by anyone unlicensed does more harm than good.
Never use dye, honey or artificial sweetener
Red dye is unnecessary because the feeder's own red parts attract birds perfectly well, honey ferments and grows fungus quickly, and sugar substitutes provide no calories at all to a bird burning through its body weight daily. Plain white table sugar and water only, in the proportions given in the nectar recipe.
Setting up so you can actually see them#
Identification gets much easier when the bird stays longer and you can see it from a fixed angle. A few practical points, with the full setup in attracting hummingbirds.
- Put a feeder where the light falls on the bird's throat from behind you rather than behind the bird. A backlit gorget is always black.
- More than one feeder, out of sight of each other, reduces the chance that a single dominant male drives everything else away before you get a look. Styles and their trade-offs are compared in choosing a hummingbird feeder and in the hummingbird feeders guide.
- Change nectar every two to three days in hot weather and clean the feeder properly, following cleaning a hummingbird feeder. Fermented nectar and black mold are a real welfare issue, not a cosmetic one.
- Native plants hold birds in the yard far longer than a feeder alone, and a bird foraging through flowers gives you more angles than one sitting at a port.
The other family guides in this section are sparrow identification, finch identification and woodpecker identification.
Frequently asked questions#
What hummingbirds live in my area?
East of the Great Plains, Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only regular breeder, so a summer hummingbird there is that species. The Pacific coast has Anna's year-round plus Allen's and Rufous, the Rockies have Broad-tailed, Black-chinned and Calliope in summer, and southern Arizona has the widest selection including Costa's and Broad-billed. Check range before comparing plumage.
How do I tell a Rufous from an Allen's Hummingbird?
On adult males, the back: Rufous is rufous-backed, though some adult males show green there, and Allen's has a solid green back. On females and immatures, you generally cannot. Separation relies on the width and shape of specific tail feathers, measured on a bird in the hand by a licensed bander. Rufous or Allen's Hummingbird is the correct field record.
Why does the hummingbird's throat look black?
Because gorget color is structural rather than pigmented. Microscopic layers in the feathers reflect color only within a narrow range of angles, so the same throat blazes magenta head-on and reads as flat black a few degrees off. Judge the shape and extent of the gorget instead, and watch a perched bird long enough for it to turn its head.
There is a hummingbird at my feeder in December in the East. What should I do?
Keep the feeder up with fresh four to one sugar water, and manage freezing by rotating two feeders overnight or using a small heat source. It is most likely a Rufous Hummingbird, which winters regularly in the Southeast. Photograph it, including a spread tail if possible, report it to eBird, and contact a licensed hummingbird bander through your state ornithological group. Do not try to catch or warm the bird.
Can leaving my feeder up stop hummingbirds from migrating?
No. Migration is triggered by changing day length and by internal timing, not by whether food is available. A feeder left up in fall helps late migrants and injured birds refuel, and it will not persuade a healthy bird to stay. Leave it out for two weeks after your last sighting, longer if you are willing to manage a winter visitor.