Aug 05, 2026
Indiana Hummingbird Season: A Month-by-Month Calendar
Timing derived from eBird data, 2016–2025 (sourced Aug 2026)
Indiana runs a fairly compact hummingbird calendar for its size — one breeding species that sweeps in from the south over about three weeks, a busy late-summer peak, and a quiet winter stretch that most years produces one real visitor worth watching for. Here's how the year actually unfolds, county by county.
The short answer: mid-April in southern Indiana, mid-May in the north, and most are gone again by mid-October.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| When do they arrive? | Mid-April in the south, early-to-mid May in the north |
| When should feeders go up? | Mid-March statewide; southern Indiana can see scattered arrivals by mid-April |
| When do they nest? | Late May through late July |
| When do they leave? | From late July; most gone by mid-October |
| Any in winter? | Rufous, most years — and rarely, an overwintering Ruby-throated |
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Arrival windows county by county, when to hang feeders in your part of the state, and when to watch for Rufous — printed small enough to tape inside the shed door.
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Indiana's Hummingbird Season at a Glance
Before the county-by-county detail below, here's the whole season in two pictures — Ruby-throated's full-season curve, and the one winter visitor worth watching for, shown at its own scale since it's a small fraction of Ruby-throated's numbers.
How often each species turns up on eBird checklists, week by week — statewide, 2016–2025. The regional breakdown below shows exactly when that wave reaches your part of the state.
Regional Arrival Snapshot
| County | Ruby-throated First Arrivals | Reliably Common By |
|---|---|---|
| Vanderburgh (Evansville) | Mid-April | Early May |
| Monroe (Bloomington) | Late April | Early May |
| Marion (Indianapolis) | Late April | Early May |
| Allen (Fort Wayne) | Early May | Mid-May |
| St. Joseph (South Bend) | Early May | Mid-May |
Windows derived from eBird bar chart data (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), 2016–2025, for Marion, Allen, St. Joseph, Vanderburgh, and Monroe counties. "First arrivals" is the first week reporting rises clearly above the winter baseline; "reliably common" is the first week each county's reports reach 25% of that county's seasonal peak. Unlike some larger states, the spread here is modest — about three weeks separates the earliest county (Vanderburgh, in the far south on the Ohio River) from the latest (the two northern counties).
January & February: The Quiet Season
| Statewide | The quietest stretch of Indiana's hummingbird year. Any hummingbird seen this early is a genuine winter record, most likely Rufous, and worth reporting to Amos Butler Audubon Society. |
| Late February | Still quiet statewide. Have a clean feeder ready by late March, ahead of the first southern scouts in April. |
If a Rufous or other winter visitor arrived at your feeder in November or December, keep the feeder up and monitored — it may linger into January or February. For everyone else, a feeder ready by late March puts you ahead of Indiana's first spring scouts.
March: Get Your Feeder Ready
March is still quiet in Indiana. Across ten years of eBird checklists, not a single Ruby-throated turns up anywhere in the state before April. That makes March the month to get ready, so a clean feeder is already hanging when the first scouts reach the Ohio River counties.
Get your feeder out before the first wave hits.
A clean, filled feeder that's already up when they arrive gives the first scouts something to find right away — no need to wait until you've seen a bird.
Shop AspenPerch® →April: The First Scouts
| Vanderburgh (Evansville) | First scouts reach the far south by mid-April. |
| Rest of Indiana | Nothing reliable yet. |
These are scattered early individuals, not yet a reliable population — but it's worth having a feeder up in far-southern Indiana by this point.
May: The Wave Moves North
| Mid-April | Vanderburgh (Evansville) — first scouts |
| Late April | Monroe (Bloomington) and Marion (Indianapolis) — first arrivals |
| Early May | All five counties reliably common; Allen (Fort Wayne) and St. Joseph (South Bend) first arrivals |
| Mid-May | Allen and St. Joseph reliably common — typically last |
This is Indiana's real spring story: Ruby-throated becomes reliably common in a rolling wave that starts in the far south and takes about three weeks to reach the northern counties. If you're in Fort Wayne or South Bend, don't be discouraged if your feeder sits quiet into early May — that's normal here.
June: Nesting Season Begins
Indiana's breeding Ruby-throateds settle in and nest statewide. Feeder activity can taper off somewhat as females become secretive around the nest, though it never goes fully silent.
Why nesting season is the demanding one
There's a wrinkle specific to hummingbirds. Most female birds build up a temporary calcium store in their bones, called medullary bone, and draw on it to make eggshell. Hummingbirds have very little of it, so a laying female has less in reserve. Researchers have seen nesting females eating wood ash and other mineral-rich materials, which they think helps replace the calcium that goes into eggs. In one 1994 study, every bird seen eating ash was a female tending a nest.
It's part of why Pop's Nectar includes calcium and electrolytes rather than sugar alone. Nesting females need extra calcium during egg-laying, and plain sugar water has essentially none. Read more on the research behind it.
Shop Nectarlyte® 8 oz →July: The Heat Brings the Pests
Nesting continues into late July, but Indiana's summer heat also brings ants, bees, and wasps out in force around feeders — competing with hummingbirds for the same sugar water right when they need it most.
Keep pests off without pesticides — hummingbirds rely on small insects for protein, so spraying near a feeder can cost them a food source, not just protect one.
AspenPerch®'s built-in ant moat blocks ants with a water barrier, and HummGuard® Nectar Tips keep bees and wasps out without changing anything for the birds.
Shop HummGuard® →August: Migration Quietly Begins
Indiana's Ruby-throateds can start heading south as early as late July, according to Purdue Extension, so some of the birds at your feeder this month may already be migrants on their way through. You won't see the yard empty out, though — statewide sightings keep climbing all through August toward the early-September peak.
This is the month to be generous, not economical.
Birds fueling for a long flight south need feeders topped up more often — the large 2lb Nectarlyte® powder or the Nectarade® liquid concentrate keeps you from running out mid-surge.
September: Peak Season, Then the Turn
The first week of September is the busiest of Indiana's whole hummingbird year. Numbers stay high through the middle of the month, then fall off sharply in the last week as birds head south.
Seeing one bird chase everyone else off?
That's usually a resident claiming both the feeder and a nearby swing as its own guarded territory — Rufous is especially known for this. A second feeder and a second swing, spaced out of sight of each other, gives another bird — the incoming migrant or a displaced resident — its own station to guard instead of fighting over one.
Shop a second swing →October: The Last Ones Leave
Sightings drop quickly through October. The northern counties around Fort Wayne and South Bend go quiet first, and the Evansville area holds on the longest. Purdue Extension recommends leaving your feeder up as long as birds are still visiting — it won't delay their migration, and a feeder that stays up through October keeps feeding migrants passing through even after your own birds have gone.
This is the planting month.
Sow now and native wildflowers get the cold, moist period most varieties need to bloom reliably next spring, from late September into early November.
Shop the Perfect Little Sanctuary® blend →November & December: The Quiet Season, With One Regular Exception
By this point in the year, any hummingbird at an Indiana feeder is worth a closer look. Rufous Hummingbird accounts for the large majority of those — Amos Butler Audubon Society records put it well ahead of any other western vagrant in the state, with roughly 80 accepted Indiana records against a single record each for Anna's and Black-chinned Hummingbird. Our own data shows a real, if brief, early peak in September — likely migrants passing through rather than settling in — before activity dips through most of October. The regular winter presence generally builds through November, and it's not unusual for one to linger into December, January, or later. A small number of Ruby-throateds skip migration entirely and overwinter in Indiana as well, rather than heading to Mexico or Central America.
Pop's tip: Indiana doesn't reward keeping a feeder up in winter with regular hummingbird traffic the way the Gulf Coast does — but it does occasionally reward patience with a Rufous, or rarely something rarer still. Keep at least one feeder up through the cold months if you like a bit of birding lottery with your coffee. Our winter hummingbird feeder care guide covers heated feeders and the two-feeder swap.
Frequently Asked Questions
When do hummingbirds come back to Indiana?
Mid-April in the far south, and about three weeks later in the north. Vanderburgh County (Evansville) sees the first scouts by mid-April; Allen (Fort Wayne) and St. Joseph (South Bend) counties typically follow last, in mid-May.
When do hummingbirds leave Indiana?
Southbound movement starts in late July, and most breeding Ruby-throateds are gone from the state by mid-October. Rufous Hummingbirds can pass through as early as September, but the regular winter presence typically builds through November.
How long do hummingbirds stay in Indiana?
Roughly six months for the breeding population, from mid-April arrival in the south through mid-October departure. The season runs a few weeks shorter in the north, where they arrive later.
Why is my Fort Wayne or South Bend feeder quiet in late April?
Because the wave hasn't reached you yet. Ruby-throated becomes reliably common in the northern counties by mid-May — about three weeks behind Evansville. A quiet feeder in late April is normal in northern Indiana.
Should I keep a feeder up through an Indiana winter?
It won't bring regular traffic the way the Gulf Coast does. But most years produce a Rufous Hummingbird report or two statewide, and rarely something genuinely rare — Indiana has one documented Black-chinned Hummingbird record and one Anna's.
Why We Built This Calendar
Pop's Birding has been helping hummingbird lovers for three generations. One of the questions our customers ask most often is "When do hummingbirds arrive and leave my state?" — we built this calendar to give a direct, sourced answer, not a generic one. Indiana's hummingbird season looks straightforward on the surface — one breeding species, a spring wave in, a fall wave out — but the north-south gradient matters: the first Ruby-throateds reach the Ohio River counties a full three to four weeks before they show up in Lake County, and a single statewide arrival date would be wrong by nearly a month depending on where you live. We also wanted a calendar honest about Indiana's rare visitors: the state has documented both Black-chinned and Anna's Hummingbirds, species most Hoosiers don't know to watch for, and knowing they're possible makes a late straggler in October a bird worth looking at carefully.
How We Built This Calendar
We pulled eBird bar chart data for Indiana statewide and for five counties — Marion (Indianapolis), Allen (Fort Wayne), St. Joseph (South Bend), Vanderburgh (Evansville), and Monroe (Bloomington) — covering 2016 through 2025, and read the seasonal shape and regional pattern directly off the reporting rates ourselves. Percentages describe how often a species appears on birdwatchers' submitted checklists — a measure of how likely you are to encounter one, not a population count.
Sources
- eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Indiana statewide and county-level (Marion, Allen, St. Joseph, Vanderburgh, Monroe), 2016–2025. Source for all month-by-month seasonal figures and the south-to-north regional arrival pattern.
- Purdue University Extension, FNR-249-W, "Attracting Hummingbirds to Your Yard" (Brian K. Miller and Brian J. MacGowan). Source for statewide arrival/departure timing corroboration.
- Amos Butler Audubon Society. Source for Indiana's historical rarity record counts.
- des Lauriers, J. R. (1994). Hummingbirds eating ashes. The Auk, 111(3), 755–756. Documents five nesting female hummingbirds eating wood ash; no males were seen doing so in that study.
- Adam, M. D., & des Lauriers, J. R. (1998). Observations of hummingbirds ingesting mineral-rich compounds. Journal of Field Ornithology, 69, 257–261. Source for hummingbirds' greatly reduced medullary bone and for the mineral-rich materials they eat.
- Werning, S. (2018). Medullary bone is phylogenetically widespread and its skeletal distribution varies by taxon. Journal of Ornithology, 159, 527–543. Source for medullary bone being confirmed in hummingbirds.
Event dates and formats change from year to year. Check organizer websites before making plans.
Know before they arrive
You don't have to keep this calendar taped to the fridge. Insider Birding Access members get seasonal notes timed to your region — when to have feeders out, what the birds are doing right now, and what's worth doing in your yard this season. We take the guesswork out of the calendar. Joining takes about thirty seconds, and there's 10% off your first order in it.
Join Insider Birding Access →Free to join. 10% off your first order.
Shop Indiana's Hummingbird Favorites
Bethany Sloan has served as General Manager of Pop's Birding since 2010, continuing the legacy of her grandfather, William "Pops" Sloan, inventor of the Original Hummingbird Swing. A lifelong hummingbird enthusiast, educator, and independent researcher, she leads the company's educational content, including its 50-State Hummingbird Guide series, Regional Guide, Species Guide and Hummingbird Learning Center. Bethany combines scientific research, regional migration data, and more than 16 years of hands-on experience to create trusted educational resources for bird enthusiasts across North America.
