Maine's documented hummingbird list lands in the middle of New England — five species, more than Vermont's three and neighboring New Hampshire's four, but fewer than Massachusetts's six. Only Ruby-throated Hummingbird breeds here. Rufous Hummingbird is a real, near-annual fall visitor. The other three are genuine rarities, each with just one or two accepted state records ever.

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

All 5 documented Maine hummingbird species, grouped by tier — statewide eBird data, 2016–2025, cross-checked against the Maine Bird Records Committee's own accepted-record history.

The Hummingbird You're Most Likely to See

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Maine's only regular breeder, and it dominates the state's hummingbird activity almost completely — its statewide eBird frequency peaks near 22% in late August, more than seventy times higher than the next most frequent species. Maine sits at the northern edge of the species' breeding range, so arrival comes later than farther south, with most birds gone by late September. There's no winter population — Maine's cold shuts off both the nectar and insects hummingbirds need to survive.

Quick ID: Males flash a brilliant ruby-red throat in good light, but it reads as solid black most of the time — the forked black tail is the more reliable everyday mark. Females have a plain whitish throat and a more rounded, white-tipped tail.

Maine's Near-Annual Fall Visitor

Once Ruby-throated numbers start thinning out in September, Maine gets one more real, if easy to miss, species passing through.

Rufous Hummingbird

Maine Audubon describes Rufous as being found "almost annually," with most records discovered at feeders in mid-October through November — a genuine, repeatable fall pattern, not a one-off. The Maine Bird Records Committee still requires documentation for every report (roughly 15–16 accepted records to date), but that's a documentation requirement, not a sign of true rarity. Maine Audubon works with licensed banders, including ornithologist Scott Weidensaul, to confirm these birds when they turn up — banding data has even shown some individuals returning to New England in multiple years.

Quick ID: Males glow with a fiery orange-red throat and a coppery-orange body — one of the most recognizable hummingbirds in North America. Females and immatures are green above with rusty flanks and rufous patches at the base of the tail.

If You're Lucky: The Northeast Rarities

Three more species have accepted Maine records, and all three are genuinely one-off or nearly so — none has more than two accepted records, and none has shown up recently enough to count as a recurring pattern.

Calliope Hummingbird

Two accepted Maine records — Monhegan Island, Lincoln County, in October 2005, and Blue Hill, Hancock County, in October–November 2008 — but nothing accepted in the 18 years since, even though the species remains a documentation-required Review species. A third sight report from 2007 was never formally reviewed and isn't counted toward the total.

Quick ID: North America's smallest breeding hummingbird, with a hunched posture and short tail. Males have a unique streaked, ray-like magenta throat unlike any other species' solid gorget. Females are tiny even by hummingbird standards, with very little rufous in the tail.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

A single accepted Maine record, ever — and it's a genuinely notable one: a hatch-year bird at a private Freeport feeder from November into December 2022, banded and confirmed by Scott Weidensaul, was not just Maine's first Broad-tailed but the first accepted record for all of New England. Nothing since. The species' real breeding range is the Rocky Mountain West, the opposite side of the continent.

Quick ID: Males have a rose-magenta throat and produce a loud, distinctive metallic wing trill in flight — often heard before seen. Females show green throat spotting rather than solid color, with a pale eyering that helps separate her from similar species.

Mexican Violetear

Also has a single accepted Maine record — a bird at Mount Desert, Hancock County, in August 2007, documented by four observers and nothing before or since.

Quick ID: A larger hummingbird than the rest of Maine's list, glittering metallic green overall with a violet-blue patch across the breast and a violet ear patch — the field mark that gives the species its name. Sexes look nearly identical.

Maine Hummingbirds at a Glance

Ruby-throated Hummingbird's dominance here isn't a close call — its statewide eBird frequency peaks near 22%, and every other documented species stays well under 1% at its own peak. With a gap that wide, a bar chart wouldn't show anything the numbers below don't already say plainly, so this section skips straight to the table.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many hummingbird species have been recorded in Maine?

Five. Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the state's only breeder, Rufous Hummingbird is a near-annual fall visitor, and Broad-tailed, Calliope, and Mexican Violetear Hummingbird are each documented rarities with just one or two accepted records apiece.

What's the only hummingbird that breeds in Maine?

Ruby-throated Hummingbird is Maine's only breeding species. The state sits at the northern edge of its range, so arrival comes later than farther south — many Mainers see their first bird of the year right around Mother's Day.

Is Rufous Hummingbird rare in Maine?

Less rare than it sounds. The Maine Bird Records Committee still requires documentation for every report, but Maine Audubon describes it as being found "almost annually," mostly at feeders in mid-October through November — a real, repeatable pattern, not a one-off.

What hummingbird rarities has Maine recorded?

Three. Broad-tailed Hummingbird has a single accepted record, a bird that stayed at a Freeport feeder from November into December 2022 — the first accepted record for all of New England. Mexican Violetear also has one accepted record, from 2007. Calliope Hummingbird has two, from 2005 and 2008, but nothing since — 18 years of silence puts it in the same historic category as the others.

How can you tell a Ruby-throated from a Rufous Hummingbird in Maine?

Color and season together settle it. Ruby-throated males show a red throat and a green back; Rufous males are almost entirely orange-red overall, unlike anything else expected in Maine. Timing helps too — Rufous shows up in fall, typically mid-October through November, well after most Ruby-throateds have already left.

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 actually show up in my state" — we built this guide to give a direct, sourced answer, not a generic one. Most general references cover Maine's hummingbirds with a single sentence about Ruby-throated and stop. That misses a real, near-annual fall visitor in Rufous Hummingbird, and three genuine rarities — each with an exact accepted-record count and date verified against the Maine Bird Records Committee's own record pages, not just a vague "has been reported" note.

How We Created This Guide

Source and scope. eBird checklist data for Maine, 2016–2025, pulled statewide plus three representative counties — Aroostook (the state's far north, bordering Canada), Cumberland (Portland and the south coast, where Maine's only Broad-tailed record occurred), and Penobscot (Bangor, central Maine) — cross-checked against the Maine Bird Records Committee's (MBRC) own official Checklist and individual species record pages.

How we separate a real pattern from a single well-publicized bird. A species clearing a percentage point in eBird's raw data isn't automatically a real pattern — a single well-photographed rarity can draw enough birders to create a real-looking statistic around one bird. Maine's Broad-tailed Hummingbird is the clearest possible example: its entire multi-week eBird signal comes from one banded individual during one documented stay, not a genuine population pattern. We checked the actual weekly checklist dates against MBRC's own accepted-record dates for every species on this page, confirming each signal traces back to a real, specific occurrence rather than an artifact of aggregating years of data onto one calendar.

What makes the dominance claim honest. Ruby-throated Hummingbird's lead over every other Maine species isn't a chart-worthy comparison — its statewide eBird frequency clears the next-highest species by more than 21 percentage points at peak, verified directly against the underlying weekly data rather than assumed from general knowledge of the species. With a gap that wide, a bar chart wouldn't add anything the table above doesn't already say.

What's original here. The tiering on this page comes from MBRC's own record-by-record documentation, not a generic "species recorded" list. Rufous Hummingbird's near-annual pattern is drawn as a real, distinct category from Maine's three true rarities — including Calliope Hummingbird, which had two records in the 2000s but has gone quiet since, a distinction (recent activity vs. total count) that most general references collapse into one undifferentiated "rare" bucket.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Maine statewide, 2016–2025.
• Maine Bird Records Committee — source for every rare-species record count and status on this page.
• All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — source for identification field marks.