Montana's documented hummingbird list runs to nine species — more than any of its neighbors (Idaho and South Dakota each have eight; North Dakota and Wyoming have six). Four species breed here, and unlike most states in this series, no single species dominates the whole picture: Calliope and Rufous Hummingbird run neck and neck for the top spot statewide. The state also has one of the more genuinely interesting patterns in this whole project — a real geographic split, right along the Continental Divide, that runs in opposite directions for two different species.

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

All 9 documented Montana hummingbird species, grouped by tier — statewide eBird data, 2016–2025, cross-checked against the Montana Bird Records Committee's own accepted-record history.

The Hummingbirds You're Most Likely to See

Calliope Hummingbird

Montana's most frequent hummingbird by eBird frequency, peaking near 10% statewide in mid-May — and far higher in the western valleys, reaching about a quarter of all hummingbird checklists around Missoula. Montana's own wildlife agency documents real in-state nest records near Fortine, Lincoln County, with egg dates from June 5 to July 11.

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.

Rufous Hummingbird

Essentially tied with Calliope for Montana's most common species, peaking near 10% statewide in late August. A confirmed breeder with documented nests near Fortine (egg dates June 3–25), and famous for aggressive feeder behavior — Montana Field Guide data and MPG Ranch banding records both confirm it's genuinely widespread across western and central Montana.

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.

Black-chinned Hummingbird

A genuine, confirmed western Montana breeder — Montana Field Guide documents actual nestlings observed on June 27 and July 19, and MPG Ranch's banding program in the Bitterroot Valley independently confirms the species nests there. Statewide frequency peaks near 3.4% in late July, concentrated almost entirely in the western half of the state.

Quick ID: Males show a velvety black throat, only revealing a thin purple band in direct light — otherwise it just looks solid black. Females are plain and pale-throated, best told apart by white-tipped outer tail feathers and a small white spot behind the eye.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Present in south-central and western Montana's mountain habitat, but worth being precise about: breeding here is presumed, not directly confirmed. Montana's own wildlife agency assigns it a breeding-season rank and notes every recorded observation falls within the expected May-through-July window, but states plainly that "no information considered as direct evidence of breeding in Montana has been recorded" — unlike Black-chinned and Calliope, which both have documented in-state nests.

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.

Montana's Great Divide: Two Mirror-Image Migrants

This is the most genuinely interesting pattern in this entire guide series. Montana's Migrant/Winter Visitor tier holds exactly two species, and they show opposite geography — each one regular and undocumented on one side of the state, and a real, documentation-required rarity on the other.

Anna's Hummingbird

Regular in western Montana — the state's records committee requires no report west of 111°W, its own operational definition of "expected." Some individuals have overwintered for months at a stretch: a Bigfork bird stayed in a garden for six months through rain, snow, and freezing temperatures, and a Creston bird was documented present for four-plus months. East of 111°W, though, Anna's is a genuine rarity requiring full documentation.

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.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The exact mirror image of Anna's: regular in eastern Montana, with no documentation required east of the Continental Divide, where Montana's wildlife agency describes it as "a rare summer breeder... with fewer than six observations in a typical year" — genuinely near-annual, just at low volume. The real pattern is a clean late-August-through-mid-September fall cluster, not a winter presence, despite the tier name. West of the Divide, it's a documented rarity. A single historic nest record exists from 1956 at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, but nothing in the current data suggests active breeding today.

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 Mountain West Rarities

Three more species have accepted Montana records, and all three are genuinely thin — none has more than two total observations on file, and one is Montana's most recently discovered species of any kind.

Costa's Hummingbird

2 total observations, ever, per the Montana Natural Heritage Program's own database — the thinnest confirmed pattern of any Montana hummingbird, with nothing suggesting recurrence.

Quick ID: Males show an extravagant violet-purple throat that flares out into long points at the sides, almost like a mustache. Females are compact and plain-faced, best told from other small desert hummingbirds by their short tail and a subtle grayish wash rather than the peachy or rufous tones seen on similar species.

Mexican Violetear

A single Montana observation, state-ranked SNA (Accidental) by the wildlife agency, and a genuine Review species on MBRC's official list. The exact date and locality couldn't be independently located this pass — MBRC's own vagrants page renders that detail dynamically and wasn't retrievable — flagged as an open citation gap rather than guessed at. 

Quick ID: A larger hummingbird than the rest of Montana'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.

Rivoli's Hummingbird

Montana's newest documented species of any kind — a single bird in 2019 was the state's first-ever record, confirmed independently by both the state wildlife agency and the Montana Bird Records Committee's own 2019 meeting minutes, which listed it among that year's five state firsts. Nothing since.

Quick ID: One of the largest hummingbirds likely to show up in Montana. Males are dark overall with a glittering green throat and a violet crown visible in good light; females are green above and grayish below, with limited pale tips in the tail corners rather than the bold white outer-tail markings smaller species show.

Montana Hummingbirds at a Glance

Statewide peak eBird frequency, 2016–2025. Mexican Violetear, Rivoli's Hummingbird, and Costa's Hummingbird all sit at or below the ~0.15% eBird rounding floor and aren't plotted here — their real record histories, all one or two total observations, are documented in the table and species write-ups above.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many hummingbird species have been recorded in Montana?

Nine — more than any of Montana's neighboring states (Idaho and South Dakota each have eight; North Dakota and Wyoming have six). Four species breed here, two are regular migrants with real geographic patterns, and three are documented rarities.

Which hummingbird is most common in Montana — and does it depend on where you are?

Statewide, Calliope and Rufous Hummingbird are essentially tied for the top spot, both with real double-digit eBird frequencies. But the honest answer depends on location: in western Montana counties like Missoula, Calliope alone can account for roughly a quarter of all hummingbird sightings, while eastern Montana's picture shifts toward Ruby-throated instead.

Why is Ruby-throated Hummingbird rare in western Montana but regular in the east?

Montana sits at a genuine geographic dividing line. The state's own records committee requires no documentation for Ruby-throated east of the Continental Divide, where it's an established fall migrant — but every report west of the Divide needs formal review, since it's genuinely uncommon there. Anna's Hummingbird shows the exact opposite pattern: regular and undocumented west of 111°W, but a documentation-required rarity east of that line.

Does Broad-tailed Hummingbird actually breed in Montana?

Probably, but it's honestly not confirmed. Montana's own wildlife agency assigns it a breeding-season rank and notes every observation falls within the expected May-to-July breeding window, but no nest or egg record has ever been documented in the state — unlike Black-chinned and Calliope, which both have confirmed in-state nest records.

Is Anna's Hummingbird rare in Montana?

Not in western Montana. The state's records committee doesn't require documentation for Anna's west of 111°W, where it's a genuine, if recent, winter visitor — some individuals have stayed at Flathead-area feeders for six months at a stretch. East of that line, though, it's a real rarity.

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. Montana's hummingbird picture genuinely depends on where in the state you're standing, in a way most general references flatten into one statewide summary. Anna's and Ruby-throated Hummingbird show exact mirror-image patterns along the Continental Divide, and Broad-tailed Hummingbird's breeding status carries a real, honest asterisk that most sources skip past. This page draws those lines explicitly, using Montana's own wildlife agency and bird records committee data.

How We Created This Guide

Source and scope. eBird checklist data for Montana, 2016–2025, pulled statewide plus four representative counties — Missoula (western Montana, where the Continental Divide pattern is most visible), Carbon (Red Lodge, south-central), Yellowstone (Billings, eastern-central), and Custer (Miles City, far east) — cross-checked against the Montana Bird Records Committee's own current State List and Review List, plus the Montana Natural Heritage Program's Field Guide for breeding-status detail.

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 every rare-tier species here, we checked the accepted-record count directly against Montana's own wildlife agency database rather than the raw eBird signal alone. The more interesting finding in Montana wasn't a false rarity, though — it was the opposite: confirming that Anna's and Ruby-throated Hummingbird's regional patterns are real and committee-documented, not an artifact of aggregating years of data onto one statewide number.

What makes the chart honest. Unlike most states in this series, Montana genuinely needed a chart rather than a dominance claim — Calliope, Rufous, and Black-chinned Hummingbird all clear the noise floor with real, distinct statewide peaks, not one species towering over the rest. Costa's, Mexican Violetear, and Rivoli's Hummingbird all sit at or below the eBird rounding floor and are named in the chart's caption rather than plotted, consistent with how every other state in this series handles genuinely floor-level species.

What's original here. The tiering on this page comes from Montana's own agency and committee documentation, not a generic "species recorded" list — including a distinction most general references skip past entirely: Broad-tailed Hummingbird sits in the Breeding tier on the strength of a state agency rank, but this page says plainly that its Montana breeding has never been directly confirmed with a nest or egg record, unlike Black-chinned and Calliope.

Sources

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