New Hampshire's documented hummingbird list runs to four species — more than neighboring Vermont's three, but fewer than Maine's five or Massachusetts's six. Only one of those four, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, breeds here or shows up with any regularity. The other three are genuine rarities, each with an exact accepted-record count on file with the state's own Rare Birds Committee.

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

All 4 documented New Hampshire hummingbird species, grouped by tier — statewide eBird data, 2016–2025, cross-checked against the New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee's own accepted-record history.

The Hummingbird You're Most Likely to See

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

New Hampshire's only regular breeding hummingbird — in fact, the only hummingbird species native to the entire Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. It arrives on a south-to-north gradient each spring and dominates the state's hummingbird activity almost completely: its statewide eBird frequency peaks near 29%, more than fifty times higher than the next most frequent species. NH Audubon's own breeding bird survey routes show the population trending upward for decades.

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.

If You're Lucky: The Northeast Rarities

Three more species have accepted New Hampshire records, but only one has any real recurring pattern. Rufous Hummingbird is a formal Review species with genuine, multi-year activity. Anna's and Calliope Hummingbird each have exactly one accepted record, decades apart, with nothing since.

Rufous Hummingbird

The New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee (NHRBC) formally reviews every reported Rufous — its "all records" review designation, distinct from the more casual language NH Audubon itself sometimes uses. Birds have turned up in multiple recent years, most recently a Stoddard, Cheshire County feeder bird that stayed into mid-December 2025.

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.

Anna's Hummingbird

A single accepted New Hampshire record — an immature bird banded and identified at a New London feeder from late October into early November 2020, #424 on the NHRBC's official state list.

Quick ID: The only North American hummingbird with a fully colored crown as well as throat — males glow rose-pink from head to throat. Females show a central patch of rose-red spotting on an otherwise plain throat, with a stocky, broad-tailed build.

Calliope Hummingbird

New Hampshire's other single-record rarity — an adult male visited a Manchester feeder from early October through late November 2013, #405 on the NHRBC's official state list, with nothing documented before or since.

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.

New Hampshire Hummingbirds at a Glance

Ruby-throated Hummingbird's dominance here isn't a close call — its statewide eBird frequency peaks near 29%, and every other documented species stays 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 New Hampshire?

Four. Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the state's only regular breeder, and Rufous, Anna's, and Calliope Hummingbird are each documented as rare visitors by the New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee.

What's the only hummingbird that breeds in New Hampshire?

Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the state's only regular breeding hummingbird, arriving in early May in the south and mid-to-late May farther north, with most birds gone by late September.

Which of New Hampshire's rare hummingbirds has genuinely recurring records?

Only Rufous Hummingbird. It's a formal Review species with the New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee, and birds have turned up in multiple recent years, most recently a Stoddard, Cheshire County feeder bird that stayed into mid-December 2025. Anna's and Calliope Hummingbird each have exactly one accepted state record.

Has Black-chinned Hummingbird ever been recorded in New Hampshire?

No. Black-chinned doesn't appear anywhere on the New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee's official state list. A male Ruby-throated's throat can look dark in poor light, but that's a lighting effect, not a different species.

When are New Hampshire's rare hummingbird visitors most likely to show up?

Late fall into early winter. New Hampshire's three rare species — Rufous, Anna's, and Calliope Hummingbird — have all been documented at feeders in October, November, or December, well after the state's Ruby-throateds have already migrated south.

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 New Hampshire's hummingbirds with a single sentence about Ruby-throated and stop there. That misses three more documented species — Rufous, Anna's, and Calliope Hummingbird — each with an exact accepted-record count and date on file with the state's own Rare Birds Committee, not just a vague "has been reported" note.

How We Created This Guide

Source and scope. eBird checklist data for New Hampshire, 2016–2025, pulled statewide plus four representative counties — Coos (the state's far north, in the White Mountains), Hillsborough (south-central, including Manchester), Rockingham (the southeast coast), and Strafford (also southeast) — cross-checked against the New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee's (NHRBC) own official State and Review List.

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. For each of New Hampshire's three rare species, we checked the actual weekly checklist counts behind the numbers, then cross-referenced against NHRBC's own state list, which names an exact date, location, and documentation class for every accepted record. Rufous Hummingbird's real signal held up as genuinely recurring across multiple years; Anna's and Calliope Hummingbird's each turned out to be exactly one bird, one time.

What makes the dominance claim honest. Ruby-throated Hummingbird's lead over every other New Hampshire species isn't a chart-worthy comparison — its statewide eBird frequency clears the next-highest species by more than 28 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 NHRBC's own record-by-record documentation, not a generic "species recorded" list. Rufous Hummingbird's Rare/Casual status is separated out from Anna's and Calliope's Historic/Accidental status based on whether there's genuine recent recurring activity, not just whether a species has ever turned up at all — a distinction most general references collapse into one undifferentiated "rare" bucket.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — New Hampshire statewide, 2016–2025.
• New Hampshire Rare Birds Committee, official State and Review List — source for every rare-species record count and status on this page.
• All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — source for identification field marks.