Only one species actually nests in Georgia. Everything else on this list is a genuine winter visitor or rarity, and ten of the thirteen require individual documentation before the Georgia Ornithological Society's own records committee will accept a sighting — not a casual checklist entry, but a real, reviewed record. That's the shape of Georgia's hummingbird year: one common, reliable breeder from spring through fall, then a remarkably active second season each winter when western strays turn up in yards from the coast to the Piedmont.

This page's job is identification and confidence — which hummingbirds you're actually looking at, and how sure you can be.

All 13 documented Georgia hummingbird species, grouped by tier — statewide eBird data, cross-checked directly against the Georgia Ornithological Society's own Checklist and Records Committee (GCRC) Review List.

The Hummingbird You're Most Likely to See

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Georgia's only true breeder, and by a wide margin its most common species — a statewide peak frequency of 40% in September, more than 90 times every other species combined. A real winter population exists too, though it's genuinely concentrated rather than statewide: longtime Georgia DNR biologist Terry Johnson, who personally banded wintering birds from the coast west to Thomasville, found the real signal clustered in coastal Chatham County specifically, with the Piedmont much lower and interior/mountain Georgia near-zero in winter. If you keep a feeder up through a Savannah winter, this is almost certainly what's using it.

Quick ID: Males have an iridescent red throat that can look black without direct light, and an entirely green back with no rufous coloring anywhere. Females and immatures lack the red throat but share the same green-backed, white-bellied build.

Georgia's Real Winter Hummingbirds

Two more species show up reliably enough, every winter, to count as genuine regular visitors rather than one-off strays — though "regular" doesn't mean "common" for either of them.

Rufous Hummingbird

Georgia's most commonly seen winter hummingbird, and it isn't close — Georgia DNR describes it plainly as "by far, the hummingbird most commonly seen in Georgia throughout the winter," with 75 to 100 individuals reported across the state in some years. Rufous sits on the Georgia Ornithological Society's Regular Checklist, not the documentation-required Review List that covers most of Georgia's other winter species — a real, meaningful distinction confirming this is genuine, expected winter presence, not something requiring special verification each time. Georgia's first record dates to Athens, August 1978.

Quick ID: Adult males are almost entirely rufous-orange on the back, tail, and flanks, with an iridescent orange-red throat. Females and immatures show a green back with a rufous wash on the flanks and tail base — genuinely difficult to separate from female Allen's without care.

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Real, but genuinely uncommon — Georgia's records committee confirms this species as regular (it isn't on the Review List, unlike every other western hummingbird on Georgia's checklist), yet available reporting suggests fewer than five individuals turn up statewide in a typical winter. A species can be a confirmed, expected part of Georgia's hummingbird year and still be a real find if you see one — this is that species.

Quick ID: Males show a black throat with just a thin iridescent purple band at the very bottom, often looking entirely black unless the light hits it right. Plain green-and-white otherwise.

If You're Lucky: The Southeast Rarities

Allen's Hummingbird

A genuine recurring pattern, just not at any one location: Georgia's best-documented record — a banded bird recovered at Cartersville in January 1994 — turned out to be a recapture of the same individual banded in Tennessee just two weeks earlier, roughly 125km north, a single wandering bird rather than a Georgia-specific pattern. But it isn't alone — scattered records across multiple different years, none at the same site twice, are enough for Georgia's records committee to place this species on the Regular Review List rather than treating it as a one-time accident.

Quick ID: Nearly identical to Rufous. Adult males can be separated by a green back (Rufous shows rufous-orange), but females and immatures are essentially inseparable in the field without a bird in hand.

Anna's Hummingbird

More documented than a commonly-cited figure suggests: Georgia's own Checklist and Records Committee carries Anna's on its Regular Review List, meaning the committee recognizes at least four accepted records.

Quick ID: Males show an iridescent rose-pink crown and throat together — the only Georgia hummingbird with a colored crown, not just a colored throat. Both sexes have a stocky build and a mostly green back.

Broad-billed Hummingbird

A genuine rarity, not a routine winter bird: this species sits on Georgia's documentation-required Review List, and the state's own wildlife agency independently describes it as "an accidental winter visitor to the Peach State." The exact number of accepted records isn't published (Georgia's committee doesn't maintain a numbered public record index the way some states do), so treat this as real but thinly-documented.

Quick ID: A coral-red bill with a black tip sets this species apart from every other Georgia hummingbird at a glance. Males show a glittering blue-green throat and body.

Buff-bellied Hummingbird

On the same documentation-required Review List as Broad-billed above, and genuinely rare rather than routine. Two confirmed records — the most recent a female that overwintered at feeders on St. Simons Island in January 2010, documented in the Georgia Ornithological Society's own journal The Oriole as "providing only the second record for the state."

Quick ID: A rufous-buff belly and tail set against a green back and throat, with a distinctly down-curved red-and-black bill.

Calliope Hummingbird

Georgia's own wildlife agency calls it directly "an accidental winter visitor throughout Georgia," turning up in small numbers ("in ones and twos") — genuinely present most winters, per the state's own long-running "second hummingbird season" pattern, but each individual sighting requires documentation, not routine expectation.

Quick ID: North America's smallest bird species. Males show streaky magenta rays on a white throat rather than a solid gorget — unique among Georgia's hummingbirds — with a short tail that doesn't extend past the wingtips at rest.

Blue-throated Mountain-gem

One of the genuinely rarest eastern vagrant hummingbirds anywhere, per Cornell/eBird's own ranking — a far weaker disperser than Rufous, Calliope, or Black-chinned, making a Georgia record extreme but real. The species does appear on Georgia's official state checklist and Regular Review List, confirming a real accepted record exists, though its exact date and location couldn't be independently verified for this page — a widely-repeated "Elberton" location claim traces only to an unverified aggregator site and isn't used here.

Quick ID: A large hummingbird with a bold white eye stripe and a glittering blue throat patch in males, set against an otherwise gray-green body.

Green-breasted Mango

Documented just once in Georgia — a hatch-year male banded near Dublin in Laurens County, present from late October 2007 into early April 2008, with a specimen retained at the Georgia Museum of Natural History. A genuine but extremely thin record, consistent with this species' overwhelmingly Texas Gulf Coast range.

Quick ID: A large hummingbird with a dark, down-curved bill and an iridescent green body; males show a black stripe running down the throat and belly.

Rivoli's Hummingbird

Seen only twice in Georgia — at St. Catherines Island and in Winder.

Quick ID: A large hummingbird with a dark, almost black body offset by a glittering green throat and violet-blue crown in males — noticeably bigger-bodied than every other species on this page.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Georgia's wildlife agency describes this species directly as "an accidental winter visitor to Georgia."

Quick ID: Males show a rose-pink throat similar to Anna's but with a green crown, not pink. In flight, their wings produce a distinctive high, metallic trilling sound unlike any other Georgia species.

Mexican Violetear

Georgia's most precisely documented rarity on this list: exactly one sighting, in Thomasville on July 8, 2001. The bird was never photographed or captured — specifically why it sits on Georgia's Provisional list rather than the confirmed Regular checklist. That's a documentation-standard distinction, not doubt about whether the sighting happened.

Quick ID: An entirely green body with a glittering violet-blue patch on the ear coverts and upper throat — the violet ear patch, not the throat itself, is the field mark that gives this species its name.

Georgia Hummingbirds at a Glance

Ruby-throated Hummingbird dominates Georgia's checklists so completely — a statewide peak of 40% of checklists in September, more than 90 times every other species combined — that a shared-scale chart would show one full bar and a field of invisible slivers next to it. The real shape of Georgia's data is better told directly: one common breeder, two real if modest winter visitors, and ten rarities ranging from a genuinely recurring pattern to a single 2001 sighting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many species of hummingbirds are in Georgia?

Thirteen — tied with Alabama for the most in the Southeast. One year-round resident (Ruby-throated), two real winter visitors (Rufous and Black-chinned), and ten rarities, each requiring individual documentation before Georgia's own records committee accepts a sighting.

What is the most common hummingbird in Georgia?

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, by an enormous margin — a statewide peak of 40% of checklists in September, more than 90 times every other species combined, and the state's only true breeder.

Do hummingbirds stay in Georgia all winter?

Yes, in a real but geographically concentrated way. A small number of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds winter along the coast, especially around Savannah, while Rufous Hummingbird is genuinely the state's most commonly reported winter species overall, with Black-chinned present in much smaller numbers.

Is Georgia a good place to see rare hummingbirds?

Genuinely, yes — ten of Georgia's 13 documented species are real rarities, each one individually reviewed and accepted by the state's own bird records committee before being added to the list, not just a casual sighting.

Why We Created This Guide

Pop's Birding has been helping hummingbird lovers for three generations. One of the questions our customers ask most often is "what hummingbirds am I actually looking at?" — we built this guide to give a direct, sourced answer, not a generic one. Georgia rewarded that discipline more than most states we've built: several species widely described as routine winter visitors are actually documentation-required rarities once you check the state's own records committee directly, and the real list runs deeper than commonly-cited figures suggest. A generic "here are Georgia's hummingbirds" list built from secondary sources alone would miss both.

How We Created This Guide

Source and scope. Statewide eBird data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, cross-checked directly against the Georgia Ornithological Society's Checklist and Records Committee (GCRC) Review List — not a secondary wildlife-agency summary of it.

How we tell a routine winter visitor from a documentation-required rarity. Broad-billed, Buff-bellied, and Calliope Hummingbird are sometimes described as routine winter visitors based on statewide checklist presence alone. Checking Georgia's actual records committee directly shows all three on the documentation-required Review List — meaning the committee treats every sighting as needing individual verification, the functional opposite of routine, expected presence.

How we separate a real pattern from a single well-publicized bird. Where a state records committee exists, as it does here, its own review-list placement is a stronger signal than eBird frequency alone — a species can show up on enough checklists to look "regular" in raw data while the people who actually review each Georgia record still treat every sighting as exceptional.

What's honestly unresolved. For several of Georgia's newer rarities (Broad-billed, Calliope, Rivoli's, Broad-tailed), the exact number of accepted records isn't independently confirmed — Georgia's committee doesn't appear to publish a numbered public accepted-records index the way some states do. The Rare tier itself is solid, direct evidence from the committee's own Review List; the specific Historic/Accidental sub-classification for these four rests on wildlife-agency framing language rather than a confirmed record count, and is flagged as a follow-up rather than treated as fully closed. Buff-bellied and Green-breasted Mango, by contrast, now rest on real, dated primary-source records — a specimen at the Georgia Museum of Natural History for the latter, and GOS's own journal The Oriole for the former — not just agency framing.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Georgia statewide.
• Georgia Ornithological Society Checklist and Records Committee — source for every rare-species status on this page.
• Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division — source for state-agency species status language.
• All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — source for identification field marks.