Jul 25, 2026
Alabama Hummingbird Season: A Month-by-Month Calendar
Updated July 2026 · Based on eBird data from 2016–2025
Alabama has two hummingbird stories running at once, and they're close to opposites. On the Gulf Coast, spring is the spectacle — birds pour in off the water in April and are mostly gone by mid-May. Inland, around Birmingham and Huntsville, spring is just the beginning of a build that doesn't crest until September.
New to feeding hummingbirds? Start with our guide to attracting hummingbirds in Alabama for feeders, nectar, and native plants. This page is the timing deep dive.
Here's the whole year, month by month.
Regions used below
Coast — Mobile, Gulf Shores, and the Alabama Gulf Coast
Inland — Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, and everywhere else
We checked Birmingham and Huntsville separately, expecting the north to run later. It doesn't — ten years of data put them on the same week. In Alabama the only meaningful divide is coast versus inland.
January
Winter birds on the coast. Nothing inland.
| Coast | Rufous peak for the year in the third week. A few Ruby-throated linger too. |
| Inland | Essentially zero. Not rare — absent. |
What to do: On the coast, keep a feeder up and clean. This is the month a wintering Rufous is most likely to be found, and most of them are only discovered because someone kept feeding. Inland, a winter feeder is a long shot.
February
The first arrivals reach the coast.
| Week 1 | Hang feeders on the Gulf Coast. |
| Week 3–4 | First Ruby-throated arrivals on the Coast — reporting rises clearly above the winter baseline and keeps climbing. |
| Inland | Still nothing. Another month to wait. |
Pop's tip: Put the feeder out before you expect birds, not after. Hummingbirds have exceptional spatial memory and return to reliable food sources year after year — and Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources notes that females often return to the very same place to nest. Being first in the neighborhood pays off for seasons.
March
Arrival month statewide, and nesting begins.
| Week 1 | Hang feeders inland. |
| Week 3 | First arrivals reach Birmingham and Huntsville — the same week for both. |
| Week 4 | Numbers jump sharply everywhere. The coast is already well ahead. |
| All month | Nesting season opens. Alabama's own wildlife agency puts egg-laying from March through July. |
What to do: Feeders up statewide. Watch for males chasing each other — territorial behavior is the first real sign the season has started, and the males arrive a week or so ahead of the females.
April
The coast's biggest spring month. Inland, the climb begins.
| Coast | Spring peak, cresting in the third week. This is as busy as the Gulf Coast gets until September. |
| Inland | Numbers climb steadily through the month as birds settle onto breeding territory. |
| Events | Two on the coast, back to back. Coastal Bird Banding at Fort Morgan is a free public banding week and one of the few stations in the country open to the public. Alabama Coastal BirdFest follows immediately after — four days of guided tours across Baldwin and Mobile counties, including hummingbird ecology workshops. |
Why nesting season is the demanding one
An Alabama female lays two eggs, incubates for about 16 days, and the young fly 20 to 22 days after hatching — then she keeps feeding them for days after that. Alabama's warm season is long enough that she may raise two or even three broods, which can mean most of the year spent nesting.
There's a wrinkle specific to hummingbirds. Most birds store calcium in medullary bone and draw on it while laying. Hummingbirds don't have it. A female building eggshell has to find calcium in real time, from a diet that's almost entirely nectar. Researchers have repeatedly documented nesting females eating wood ash, lime, and soil to get it — and never observed males doing the same.
What to do: Keep feeders full and clean, and skip the insecticide entirely. Nesting females need small insects and spiders for protein, and spider silk is what holds the nest together — Alabama nests are built from ferns, milkweed, young oak leaves and thistle, bound with spider silk or webbing from tent caterpillar nests.
May
The coast empties out. Inland doesn't.
| Coast | A sharp drop mid-month — reports fall to roughly a seventh of what they were two weeks earlier. Most of those April birds were passing through, not staying. |
| Inland | Steady and busy. Breeding in full swing. |
What to do: If you're on the coast, don't take a sudden quiet spell as the end of the season. Heat also starts to matter now — above 90°F, change nectar every one to two days, and fill the feeder only as full as your birds will drink in a couple of days.
June
The coast's quietest stretch. Inland, the opposite.
| Coast | The low point of the season. Relatively few hummingbirds nest on the immediate coast. |
| Inland | Busy and getting busier. Second broods are underway. |
What to do: This is the month the coast/inland split is most obvious — a Mobile feeder and a Birmingham feeder are having completely different summers. Keep both going.
July
Inland numbers take off.
| Inland | Reports roughly double over the month as this year's young start flying and joining the adults at feeders. |
| Coast | Slowly picking back up. |
| All month | Last month of egg-laying. Late nests will still have young in them into August. |
What to do: Add a second feeder if you're seeing chasing. Hummingbirds defend food they can see all of, so two feeders placed out of sight of each other support far more birds than one.
Events: Alabama Audubon's Black Belt Birding Festival runs the first weekend in August, kicking off the evening of the last Friday in July in Greensboro. Guided field trips spread across eight Black Belt counties.
August
Inland approaches its peak. Fort Morgan starts filling.
| Inland | Hummingbirds on more than half of all checklists by mid-month, and still climbing. |
| Coast | Numbers building fast. The Fort Morgan staging season begins in late August. |
| Departures | Adult males start slipping south, often by late August — well ahead of females and young. |
What to do: Keep everything full. Birds on the coast are beginning to build fat for a Gulf crossing, and a reliable feeder in August matters more than one in April.
September
The biggest month of the year, everywhere in Alabama.
| Inland | Peak. Around Birmingham, roughly two out of every three checklists record hummingbirds in the first week. |
| Coast | Peak in the third week — the same window in which Fort Morgan researchers found autumn migration cresting. |
| Rufous | First coastal records of the winter start appearing. |
What to do: More feeders, filled more often. This is the month to be generous — and on the coast, the birds at your feeder are fuelling for up to 500 miles of open water.
October
The season closes fast.
| Inland | From a quarter of checklists in week one to almost nothing by month's end. |
| Coast | Runs about a week behind. Stragglers into late October. |
| Planting | Prime wildflower sowing window opens. |
What to do: Sow the Perfect Little Sanctuary® blend in October or November, so the seed gets the cold, moist period most of the varieties need before spring.
Leave your feeder up. It's a myth that doing so delays migration — hummingbirds move on day length and instinct, not food supply. The last birds through are usually that summer's young, making the trip for the first time.
November
Inland closes. The coast switches species.
| Inland | Done. Take feeders down about two weeks after your last sighting. |
| Coast | Rufous become regular from late October onward, and hold through the winter. |
What to do: On the coast, this is the moment to decide to keep going. Alabama's Gulf Coast hosts wintering hummingbirds every year — mostly Rufous, not Ruby-throated — and a maintained feeder is how most of them get found.
December
Winter residents only, and only on the coast.
| Coast | Rufous through the month, with Black-chinned and a few Ruby-throated alongside them. |
| Inland | Nothing. |
What to do: If you're keeping a winter feeder, report what turns up. Winter hummingbirds on the Gulf Coast are of genuine research interest, and females and young often can't be named without a licensed bander measuring them in the hand.
The Year at a Glance
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Early February | Feeders up on the Gulf Coast |
| Late February | First coastal arrivals |
| Early March | Feeders up inland |
| Mid-to-late March | First inland arrivals — Birmingham and Huntsville the same week |
| March – July | Nesting season; two to three broods possible |
| April | Coastal spring peak; Fort Morgan public banding and Coastal BirdFest |
| First weekend in August | Black Belt Birding Festival |
| September | Peak month statewide |
| October – November | Sow wildflower seed |
| Two weeks after your last sighting | Feeders down inland — on the coast, consider leaving one up all winter |
How We Built This Calendar
Every arrival, departure, and peak date on this page comes from ten years of citizen-science observation rather than from general guidance. We pulled eBird bar chart data for Alabama and for three counties chosen to represent each part of the state — Mobile for the Gulf Coast, Jefferson for central Alabama, Madison for the Tennessee Valley — covering 2016 through 2025, and read the arrival and departure weeks directly off the reporting rates.
A region's "first arrivals" week is the first week in which reporting rises clearly above the off-season baseline and keeps climbing — a rule designed to distinguish genuine new arrivals from the handful of birds that overwinter on the coast. Feeder dates are set two weeks ahead of that.
Percentages describe how often a species appears on birdwatchers' submitted sighting lists — a measure of how likely you are to encounter one, not a population count.
Sources
- eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Alabama statewide plus Mobile, Jefferson, and Madison counties, 2016–2025. Source for all arrival, departure, peak, and species frequency figures.
- Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources — Ruby-throated Hummingbird species account. Source for nesting dates, clutch size, incubation and fledging periods, brood count, and nest materials.
- des Lauriers, J. R. (1994). Hummingbirds eating ashes. The Auk, 111(3), 755–756. Documents nesting female hummingbirds consuming calcium-rich wood ash; males were never observed doing so.
- Zenzal, T. J., & Moore, F. R. (2016). Stopover biology of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) during autumn migration. The Auk, 133(2), 237–250. Source for Fort Morgan autumn staging and passage timing.
- Bassett, F., & Cubie, D. (2009). Wintering hummingbirds in Alabama and Florida. Journal of Field Ornithology, 80(2), 154–162.
- Alabama Audubon event calendar — source for festival and public banding dates.
Event dates and formats change from year to year — Coastal BirdFest moved from a fall date to spring in 2026, after more than two decades in the fall. Check organizer websites before making plans.
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, Migration 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.
