Kansas Hummingbird Season: A Month-by-Month Calendar

Timing derived from eBird checklist data, 2016–2025, sourced September 2026.

Kansas has one hummingbird that breeds across the whole state, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, and a second, far more localized breeder tucked into the state's far southwest corner. Statewide, the season runs from late April to mid-October, but it isn't one smooth rise and fall — Ruby-throated dips during nesting season, then climbs all summer to its real peak in early September, and the Kansas City metro area sees numbers that run far higher than the rest of the state.

The short answer: put feeders up by mid-April. Ruby-throated arrives statewide in late April — the same week in both Wichita and the Kansas City metro — dips in June while females nest, then builds through summer to its busiest stretch in early September, and leaves Kansas by mid-October. The Kansas City metro runs far busier than the rest of the state: at the September peak, about two in five birdwatchers in Johnson County report a hummingbird, roughly double the statewide rate.

Quick Answers

Kansas Hummingbirds at a Glance

Ruby-throated Hummingbird's Kansas season isn't a single smooth bell curve. Statewide, sightings climb fast through May to a spring high, ease off in June as females settle onto nests, then build steadily all summer to the year's real peak in the first half of September — about half again as busy as the spring high, not just a rebound from it.

The Regions on This Page

The Far Southwest: A Different Bird Community

Morton and Finney counties, in Kansas's far southwest corner near the Colorado and Oklahoma borders, see a genuinely different set of hummingbirds — real, but too thin in eBird's own numbers to place on the chart above or to promise a firm season for. Morton County has its own small, localized Black-chinned Hummingbird breeding population, arriving in early May and tapering off by early September — real enough that the Kansas Bird Records Committee doesn't require documentation for Black-chinned sightings in southwest Kansas the way it does everywhere else in the state. Nearby Finney County (Garden City) tells a different story again: Ruby-throated shows up there mainly as a brief late-August pulse rather than a spring-through-fall presence, alongside scattered, too-brief-to-season sightings of Calliope and Broad-tailed Hummingbird in late summer. None of these far-southwest patterns rest on enough sightings to state an arrival or departure date with confidence, so we describe them here rather than chart them.

January, February & March: The Quiet Season

There are no Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in Kansas in these months, and no regular hummingbird activity of any kind. By March the state is empty, and the first arrivals are still more than a month away.

Get your feeder up before the first bird arrives, not after.

Kansas's first Ruby-throateds arrive in the last week of April, so a feeder hanging by mid-April costs you nothing — one still in the garage when the first bird turns up costs you the sighting. This is also the month to check last year's feeder for cracked seals and worn ports before the season depends on it. AspenPerch® has a built-in ant moat and a Polyperch® comfort perch, so birds rest between sips instead of hovering through the whole meal.

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April: The First Arrivals

Ruby-throated arrives in the last week of April, and it arrives at the same time everywhere that matters — Wichita and the Kansas City metro both go from almost nothing to steady sightings in the same week, with about one in twenty birdwatchers in each place starting to report them.

We count arrival as the week sightings pick up and keep coming. A few birds turn up the week before in both counties, but too few to call it the start of the season.

What to do: Feeders up by mid-April. A feeder hanging a week early costs nothing; one that goes out after the first birds have come through misses them.

May: The Spring Climb

May is Kansas's spring high point. By the third week, about one in six birdwatchers statewide is reporting a Ruby-throated. The Kansas City metro leads by a wide margin — about one in five, already half of what it will reach at its late-summer peak — while Wichita sits closer to the statewide figure.

June: Nesting Season

Sightings ease statewide as females settle onto nests, dropping by about a third from May's high. The two counties handle this dip very differently. Wichita's numbers fall hard, to less than a third of its May peak at the lowest week. Johnson County barely dips at all, holding steady all month. This is the clearest sign that Kansas City's hummingbirds aren't simply busier than Wichita's — they're a fuller, steadier presence through the whole season.

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 Rebuild Begins

Wichita climbs back out of its June dip only slowly, and doesn't really pick up until the last week of the month. Johnson County, which never really dipped, keeps climbing — by the third week, one in four birdwatchers there is reporting a hummingbird, already more than at its May high. Statewide, the rebuild is slow and steady.

Keep pests off without pesticides.

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.

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August: Building to the Peak

August is when the gap between Kansas's two counties becomes hard to miss. In Johnson County, sightings climb from under one in three birdwatchers in the first week to two in five by the last — a jump few counties anywhere in our data match. Wichita climbs too, from about one in ten to about one in six, a real increase but nowhere near Johnson's pace. Statewide, August ends almost at what will turn out to be the year's peak.

This is the month to be generous, not economical.

Birds fueling for a long flight need feeders topped up more often — the large 2lb Nectarlyte® powder or the Nectarade® liquid concentrate keeps you from running out mid-surge.

Shop Nectarlyte® Powder 2 lb →

Shop Nectarade® Liquid 50.7 oz →

September: The Real Peak

Kansas's true peak comes in the first half of September, not August. Statewide, the second week of September is the busiest of the year, with nearly one in four birdwatchers reporting a Ruby-throated. Johnson County peaks the very same week at an extraordinary two in five, nearly double the statewide figure. Wichita peaks a week earlier, then both counties fall away fast: by the last week of the month, Wichita is down to little more than a third of its peak, and Johnson to a little over half of its own.

September & October: When Hummingbirds Leave Kansas

The exit is fast everywhere. Wichita's sightings dwindle to almost nothing by the second week of October, and it clears by early October. Johnson County holds on slightly longer at very low, thinning numbers before also clearing by mid-October. Statewide, essentially nothing remains after mid-October.

The last week or two of each county's season rests on just a few scattered sightings — real birds, but too few to name a firm last date. Treat "by early October" and "by mid-October" as safe outer bounds rather than a specific final week.

What to do: Leave feeders up two weeks after your last sighting. The late birds still moving through are the ones that need a full feeder most.

This is the planting month.

Kansas's Ruby-throateds are gone by mid-October, which makes the rest of the month the time to sow. Native wildflowers need the cold, moist winter most varieties require to bloom reliably next spring.

Shop the Perfect Little Sanctuary® blend →

November & December: Watching for a Rare Anna's

By November, Kansas's Ruby-throateds are gone, and so is the small far-southwest Black-chinned population. What's left is a small chance of an Anna's Hummingbird, a western species the Kansas Bird Records Committee has accepted 17 times statewide, most recently in 2025. Past records include a bird that fed at an Oskaloosa (Jefferson County) feeder from mid-November 2023 into mid-January 2024, and one in Garden City (Finney County) in October 2022 — genuinely scattered records rather than a predictable winter pattern, and each new sighting still requires documentation for the committee.

What to do: If a hummingbird shows up after October, keep the nectar from freezing — bring the feeder in overnight and hang it back out at first light — and photograph the bird. A clear photo is what let the committee confirm the Oskaloosa bird as an Anna's.

The Year at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

When do hummingbirds arrive in Kansas?

In the last week of April, statewide — and at the same time in both Wichita and the Kansas City metro. There's no regional head start; the difference between Kansas's counties is in how busy the season gets, not when it starts.

When do hummingbirds leave Kansas?

By mid-October statewide. Wichita clears a little sooner, by early October, and almost nothing is reported anywhere after mid-October.

When should I put my hummingbird feeder up in Kansas?

By mid-April, a week or two ahead of the first arrivals in the last week of the month.

When should I take my hummingbird feeder down in Kansas?

Two weeks after your last sighting, which for most of the state means late October. Nothing regular remains after that, though a rare Anna's Hummingbird has turned up as late as January.

What is the best time to see hummingbirds in Kansas?

Early September, when nearly one in four birdwatchers statewide reports a Ruby-throated. If you're in the Kansas City metro, expect it even busier — about two in five there, nearly double the statewide figure.

Are there hummingbirds in Kansas in winter?

Almost never. Ruby-throated is gone by mid-October. The one exception is a rare Anna's Hummingbird — the Kansas Bird Records Committee has accepted 17 records statewide, including a bird that stayed at an Oskaloosa feeder from November 2023 into January 2024.

Why We Built This Calendar

Pop's Birding has been helping hummingbird lovers for three generations, and "when do hummingbirds arrive and leave my state?" is one of the questions we hear most. Most timing advice online answers it with a single date for a whole state, and for Kansas that single date actually holds up better than in most states we've built this for — Wichita and the Kansas City metro genuinely do start and end in the same week. What a single date hides is how differently busy the season gets: Kansas City's hummingbirds run at roughly double Wichita's numbers for most of the summer, peaking at nearly double the statewide rate. We built this calendar to show that difference honestly, and to describe the state's real far-southwest hummingbird community — genuinely different birds, in genuinely thin numbers — rather than leave it out for being inconvenient to chart.

How We Built This Calendar

Every date on this page comes from ten years of eBird checklists (2016–2025), read week by week for Kansas as a whole and for Sedgwick (Wichita) and Johnson (Kansas City metro) counties. We checked each species' status against the Kansas Bird Records Committee's review list and the Kansas Ornithological Society's state checklist rather than guessing from how often it's reported. The biggest finding: Wichita and Kansas City run on the same calendar but at very different volumes, with Kansas City about twice as busy all summer. We also looked at the far southwest on its own and found a different story there, including a small breeding population of Black-chinned Hummingbirds in Morton County. Wherever the data was too thin to trust, we said so instead of rounding it into a claim.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Kansas statewide, Sedgwick, Johnson, Finney and Morton counties, 2016–2025.
• Review List, Kansas Bird Records Committee — species status, accepted-record counts, and the southwest Kansas documentation exemption for Black-chinned Hummingbird.
• Checklist of Kansas Birds, Kansas Ornithological Society (March 31, 2026) — breeding status.
• 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.