Jul 26, 2026
Alaska Hummingbird Season: A Month-by-Month Calendar
Updated July 2026 · Timing derived from eBird data, 2016–2025
Alaska has two hummingbird seasons, and they barely overlap. Rufous Hummingbirds arrive in April and are gone by early September. Anna's Hummingbirds — a species that didn't occur here a generation ago — turn up as the Rufous leave and stay through the winter. In Southeast Alaska that means a feeder can have customers in any month of the year. Just never the same bird.
New to feeding hummingbirds? Start with our guide to attracting hummingbirds in Alaska for feeders, nectar, and native plants. This page is the timing deep dive.
Here's the whole year, month by month.
Regions used below
Southeast — Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, and the Inside Passage
Southcentral — Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula, Mat-Su, Prince William Sound
Interior & North — Fairbanks, Nome, and everything above the coastal ranges
The Interior barely appears below, and that's the finding rather than a gap: ten years of records show no hummingbirds in the Fairbanks area. A handful of extreme vagrants have been documented in Interior Alaska over the decades, but there is no population and no season.
January
Anna's country.
| Southeast | Anna's Hummingbirds at feeders in the depths of winter. Not a fluke, not a single famous bird — a steady presence through the month. |
| Southcentral | Essentially none. The Anna's that appeared in fall don't make it through December. |
| Interior | None. |
What to do: If you're in Southeast Alaska and keeping a winter feeder, this is when it matters most. Use a heated feeder, or rotate two so one is always thawed. Anna's survive cold nights by dropping into torpor — lowering their body temperature dramatically to conserve energy — but they need fuel to come out of it in the morning.
February
The quietest month of the year.
| Southeast | Anna's still present, at their lowest ebb of the winter. |
| Elsewhere | Nothing. |
What to do: Keep the winter feeder going if you started one. Late winter is the hardest stretch for a bird that isn't supposed to be here.
March
Anna's peak briefly, then the switchover begins.
| Week 1 | A small late-winter bump in Anna's reports across the Southeast, then a steady decline through the month. |
| Late March | Hang your feeders in Southeast Alaska. The first Rufous can reach Southeast Alaska in the closing days of March. |
| Southcentral | Still empty. Another six weeks to wait. |
Pop's tip: Put the feeder out before you expect birds, not after. A Rufous arriving in Ketchikan has flown roughly 3,900 miles from Mexico — the longest migration of any bird on Earth measured against body size. The first feeder it finds is the one it remembers.
April
Arrival month, and the whole state's biggest event.
| Week 1 | First Rufous around Juneau. |
| Weeks 2–4 | Numbers roughly double each week — from a handful of reports to more than one checklist in five by month's end. One of the fastest arrivals of any bird in North America. |
| Southcentral | The very first birds appear late in the month, but only just. |
| Events | The Alaska Hummingbird Festival runs all month in Ketchikan, hosted at the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center — a juried art show open to all Alaskan artists, Saturday morning bird walks, the Friday Night Insights lecture series, and Earth Day activities. All free. |
What to do: Feeders out and full across Southeast. Hang one in Southcentral by mid-month if you're in Anchorage or on the Kenai.
May
Southcentral finally opens. Nesting begins.
| Southcentral | Rufous arrive and peak in the same month, cresting around the third week. Numbers are far thinner than Southeast — roughly one checklist in sixty. |
| Southeast | Busy and settling. Males have claimed territories; females are building. |
| Anna's | Effectively gone until August. They don't breed here in any numbers. |
Why nesting season is the demanding one
A female builds the nest, incubates, and raises the young entirely alone — and in Alaska she has to fit all of it into a season barely four months long. There is no time for a second attempt if the first fails.
There's also 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 clean and full, and skip the insecticide. Nesting females need small insects and spiders for protein, and spider silk is what holds the nest together.
June
Quiet on the surface, busy in the trees.
| Southeast | Reports dip slightly. Females are sitting on nests rather than visiting feeders. |
| Southcentral | Steady, at low numbers. |
| Events | Summer Hummingbird Days at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Girdwood, hosted with the US Fish and Wildlife Service — live banding demonstrations, talks on hummingbirds and pollinators, kids' activities, and practical advice on feeders and pollinator gardens in Alaska. Free with admission. |
What to do: Don't read a quieter feeder as the season ending. A female on eggs leaves the nest only briefly each hour — she's still there, just not where you can see her.
July
Peak month in Southeast.
| Southeast | The year's high point, in the first week — more than one checklist in five. This summer's young are flying and joining the adults at feeders. |
| Southcentral | A small early-July bump, then a fast decline. The season is already ending here. |
| Departures | Adult males begin heading south, well ahead of females and young. Rufous start their southbound journey remarkably early. |
What to do: Add a second feeder if you're seeing chasing. Hummingbirds defend food they can see all of, so two placed out of sight of each other support far more birds than one.
August
The handover month.
| Southeast | Rufous hold steady for three weeks, then fall off a cliff in the last week — from roughly one checklist in eight to one in eighteen. |
| Southcentral | Rufous essentially gone by mid-month. |
| Anna's | Start reappearing. Reports climb through the month in both Southeast and Southcentral, right as Rufous leave. |
What to do: Don't take the feeder down when the Rufous stop coming. The second season is starting.
September
Rufous out, Anna's in.
| Rufous | Gone. A scattering in the first week, nothing at all by the third. |
| Anna's, Southeast | Climbing hard — from about one checklist in a hundred at the start of the month to nearly one in fourteen at the end. |
| Anna's, Southcentral | Present in small numbers. |
What to do: Clean the feeder and keep it going. Anything at your feeder in Alaska from now until March is an Anna's, and worth reporting.
October
The Anna's high season.
| Southeast | The strongest month of the Anna's year, holding steady all month at the highest sustained rate of any winter month. |
| Southcentral | A modest but real presence around Anchorage. |
| Planting | Too late. Alaska sows in late spring, not fall. |
What to do: This is the month to commit to winter feeding, because it's the month you'll find out whether you have a bird. Set up a heated feeder or a second one to rotate before the hard freezes arrive.
November
Southcentral closes. Southeast doesn't.
| Southeast | Anna's dip mid-month, then recover. They're settling in for the winter. |
| Southcentral | Reports trail off. Very few Anna's around Anchorage make it past November. |
What to do: If you're in Anchorage and had an Anna's in the fall, this is when it usually ends. In Southeast, keep going — the winter birds are just getting started.
December
A hummingbird in an Alaskan December.
| Southeast | Anna's rise again — December reports run higher than November's. They are genuinely wintering here. |
| Southcentral | None. |
| Interior | None, as in every month of the year. |
What to do: Keep the nectar from freezing and report what you see. A wintering Anna's in Southeast Alaska is a bird at the very edge of what its species can do, and the records matter.
The Year at a Glance
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Late March | Feeders up in Southeast Alaska |
| April | Rufous arrive and build fast; Alaska Hummingbird Festival, Ketchikan |
| Mid-April | Feeders up in Southcentral |
| May – July | Nesting season; one brood only |
| June | Summer Hummingbird Days, Girdwood |
| Early July | Peak Rufous numbers in Southeast |
| Late August | Rufous depart; Anna's begin arriving |
| October | Peak Anna's season in Southeast |
| All winter, Southeast | Keep a heated feeder up for wintering Anna's |
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 Alaska and for three boroughs chosen to represent each part of the state — Juneau for Southeast, Anchorage for Southcentral, Fairbanks North Star for the Interior — 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. 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 — Alaska statewide plus Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks North Star boroughs, 2016–2025. Source for all arrival, departure, peak, and species frequency figures.
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds — Rufous Hummingbird. Source for migration distance and the northernmost-breeding claim.
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game — Long-Distance Hummingbird Sheds Light on Migration.
- Alaska Public Lands Information Centers — Bird Festivals, and Audubon Alaska's bird festival listing. Sources for event timing.
- 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.
Event dates and formats change from year to year. 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.
