Somewhere around Hot Springs, in the last week of March, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird lands on a feeder that has been hanging empty for five months. A day or two later the same thing happens in Little Rock. Fayetteville waits another week or two. And by the end of April, the whole of Arkansas is in season at once — which makes the fall all the more surprising, because the state does not leave the way it arrived.

The short answer: Ruby-throated Hummingbirds come back to Arkansas in the last week of March, starting in the Ouachitas and central Arkansas, and the whole state has them by mid-to-late April. The busiest stretch is late August through September. Northwest Arkansas and Hot Springs empty out by mid-October, and Little Rock holds birds into the first week of November. Then a different hummingbird — the Rufous Hummingbird — takes over the winter, mostly around Little Rock.

Arkansas's Hummingbird Season at a Glance

Two charts, because Arkansas has two hummingbird seasons that barely overlap — the summer one almost everyone sees, and a winter one most people never notice.

Statewide reporting rate by week for Ruby-throated Hummingbird, from eBird checklist data (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), 2016–2025.

That chart tells you who is biggest, but it hides who is smallest. Ruby-throated's September peak would flatten every other hummingbird in Arkansas into what looks like a line along the bottom — even though three of them have a real, repeating season of their own. Here they are on their own chart, at their own scale, so you can see the shape of a winter that the chart above cannot show.

Rufous, Anna's and Black-chinned Hummingbirds, statewide, on their own scale. Same eBird data, 2016–2025.

Arrival and departure windows by region, based on eBird checklist data (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), 2016–2025.

January & February: The Winter Hummingbird

Ruby-throated is gone, and has been since November. But Arkansas is not empty. Rufous Hummingbird — a western bird that breeds as far north as Alaska — spends part of the winter here most years, and January and February are the heart of it. The pattern is real and recurring across the decade of data, but it is thin, and it is lopsided: sightings cluster heavily around Little Rock, with only scattered single birds anywhere else. Arkansas's own bird records committee treats Rufous as a regular occurrence rather than a rarity, which is exactly what this winter cluster shows.

Two rarer birds share these months. Anna's Hummingbird has wintered at Arkansas feeders in recent years, including one that turned up in the same Vilonia yard on the same January date two winters running. And Black-chinned Hummingbird, with thirteen accepted state records, shows a small but genuine mid-winter cluster in the Little Rock area — thin enough that we would not tell you to expect one, real enough that it belongs on the chart above.

What to do: if you live in or near Little Rock and are willing to keep one feeder going through the cold, this is the one part of Arkansas where that has a real chance of paying off. Everywhere else, a midwinter hummingbird is a genuine event worth reporting to the state's rare bird database.

March: The Ouachitas Go First

The first scouts cross into Arkansas in the third week of March — eight checklists statewide that week, and clean zeros for the ten weeks before it. Then, in the last week of the month, it becomes real. Hot Springs has the strongest opening of anywhere in the state, with Ruby-throated on 7% of checklists before March is over, and Little Rock is only a step behind. Fayetteville and the Delta have nothing yet.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the year's story, the winter Rufous are leaving. The last of them slip out of the Little Rock area in late March, just as the first Ruby-throated arrive — the two seasons touch, but barely overlap.

Get your feeder up before the first bird arrives, not after. Arkansas's arrival runs from the Ouachitas up to the Ozarks across about two weeks, so a feeder that goes out in mid-March costs you nothing — one that's still in the garage when the first scout turns up costs you the sighting. March 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. Shop AspenPerch® →

April: The Whole State Fills In

April is when Arkansas goes from two regions to four. Fayetteville and the rest of Northwest Arkansas see their first birds in the opening week and real numbers by the second. The Delta around West Memphis is last, in the final week of the month — though that region's checklist volume is so much lighter than the others that we would treat its date as "late April, give or take" rather than a specific week.

By the last week of April, Ruby-throated is on roughly a quarter of all Arkansas checklists, and in Hot Springs it is already on more than a third. Nesting begins before the month is out: the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission puts nesting activity from late April through mid-August.

"First arrivals" here means the first week a region's reports rise clearly above the winter baseline and hold there for consecutive weeks — not a one-week blip. The right-hand column is the actual number of checklists reporting the species that week, not a percentage, because a low-traffic county can cross a percentage threshold on a handful of reports.

It's part of why Pop's Nectar includes calcium and electrolytes rather than sugar alone. Nesting females need a real source of calcium during egg-laying, and there isn't one in nectar alone. Shop Pop's Nectar → Read more on the research behind it.

May: The Spring High

Statewide, the first week of May is the top of the spring — about 26% of checklists — and it holds near there for two weeks before easing. Northwest Arkansas is at its busiest of the spring in the second week of May, at nearly a third of checklists, and the Delta reaches the best numbers it will post all year in the same week.

It feels like the peak. It is not. Numbers dip through June and then climb to a much higher late-summer high. If your feeder quiets down in a few weeks, nothing has gone wrong.

June: The Nesting Lull

The quietest month of the active season, and the most misread. Around Little Rock, Ruby-throated drops to about 15% of checklists in the third week of June — the lowest it will be between April and October. Fewer birds at the feeder in June usually means more birds sitting on nests nearby: females are incubating, not gone. Hot Springs and Fayetteville hold up better through the lull, but every region has its birds.

What to do: keep the nectar fresh even when traffic is light. The birds that are visiting are feeding young, and July's surge is coming whether the feeder looks busy now or not.

July: Numbers Climb Hard

Fledglings are out, and it shows. Hot Springs jumps from 36% of checklists in the first week of July to 57% by the third; Fayetteville tops 40%. Statewide, July closes at 34% — already near what September will bring, and higher than any spring week.

One small thing worth knowing: that little bump on the winter-visitors chart in late July and August is Rufous. A handful pass through Arkansas on the early edge of their southbound migration each year — real, but a few birds across the whole state, and nothing like the winter presence around Little Rock that begins in November.

August: The Ozarks Peak First

Northwest Arkansas reaches its high for the year in the first week of August — 47% of Fayetteville checklists — and then holds in the 40s through the month. Hot Springs is even busier: the second week of August reaches 64% of checklists, nearly two of every three — a level it will match again in September. Little Rock climbs through the 40s toward a peak that is still a month away.

Arkansas summers are hot, and heat spoils nectar faster than anything else. If you change it every two days in September, change it every day in August.

September: The Busiest Month, and Then They Leave

Statewide, this is the top: 38% of all Arkansas checklists in the second week of September, the highest reading of the year. Little Rock and Hot Springs both peak in the third week — 52% and 64% — and the birds you are seeing now are increasingly not the ones that nested in your yard. They are moving through from farther north, and everything they take on is fuel for a long flight.

Then the turn. Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas are the first to leave: the fourth week of September drops to 22%, less than half of the week before. Hot Springs and Little Rock are still busy as the month ends, but the direction is set.

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® 2lb →  |  Shop Nectarade® Concentrate →

October: Most of Arkansas Empties Out, and It's the Planting Month

The state leaves in the same order it arrived, only stretched out. Northwest Arkansas is first: Fayetteville is down to 5.7% of checklists by the second week of October and essentially empty by the third. Hot Springs is only days behind: 16% of checklists in the second week of October, under 4% by the third, and a last handful of birds into the fourth. Little Rock is last, still holding birds through the end of the month. The Delta's data is too thin to call a week, but nothing meaningful shows there after mid-October either.

What to do: do not pull your feeders the moment your regular birds leave. Late October is exactly when a straggler or a western rarity turns up, and an empty hook is a missed one.

This is the planting month. Sow now and native wildflowers get the cold, moist period most varieties need to bloom reliably next spring. Shop the Perfect Little Sanctuary® blend →

November & December: The Handoff

Little Rock's last Ruby-throated linger into the first week of November — nine checklists that week, the latest real presence anywhere in the state — and a straggler or two turn up into late November. At almost exactly the same moment, the winter bird arrives: Rufous Hummingbirds begin showing up in the second week of November, and by December the Little Rock area has a small, recurring winter population that will stay into March. Black-chinned and Anna's both put in their first winter appearances in December as well.

This is also the window for Arkansas's rarest hummingbirds. Of the seven hummingbird species on the state's review list, four have turned up mainly in late autumn or winter, and several at ordinary backyard feeders — including a Broad-tailed Hummingbird that stayed in Wynne from December 2020 into January 2021, and a Calliope Hummingbird that wintered near Ferndale from November 2003 to April 2004. Those birds were found by people who simply had not taken their feeders down.

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 — and Rufous, arriving now, is famous for it. A second feeder and a second swing, spaced out of sight of each other, gives the incoming migrant its own station to guard instead of fighting over one. Shop a second feeder →  |  Shop swings →

The Year at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

When do hummingbirds come back to Arkansas?

The last week of March, starting around Hot Springs and Little Rock — with the very first scouts crossing the state line a week earlier than that. Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas see their first birds in the first week of April and real numbers by the second. The Delta around West Memphis is last, in late April. If you want one date to plan around, have a feeder out by mid-March anywhere in Arkansas.

When do hummingbirds leave Arkansas?

It depends on where you are, and the spread is two to three weeks. Northwest Arkansas is first: Fayetteville is nearly empty by the middle of October, and Hot Springs and the Ouachitas are only a few days behind. Little Rock is last, holding birds into the first week of November, with a straggler or two into late November. If you are anywhere in the state and still seeing hummingbirds on Halloween, you are most likely in central Arkansas.

How long do hummingbirds stay in Arkansas?

About seven months in central Arkansas — late March to early November around Little Rock — and closer to six and a half in Northwest Arkansas, where they arrive a week or two later and leave a few weeks earlier. That is the Ruby-throated season. If you count the winter Rufous around Little Rock, some part of Arkansas has a hummingbird in it nearly all year, with only a short gap in early-to-mid March when the last winter birds have left and the first summer birds are just arriving.

When should I put my hummingbird feeder out in Arkansas?

Mid-March, anywhere in the state. The first Ruby-throated are already moving through by the third week of March, and Hot Springs and Little Rock have them in real numbers by the last week. Being a week or two early costs nothing; being a week late costs you the first arrivals, and a feeder that is already out when a bird passes through is what turns a yard into a stop on the route.

When should I stop feeding hummingbirds in Arkansas?

Later than most people do. Leaving a feeder up does not hold birds back from migrating — that is driven by daylight, not by whether your feeder is full — and late birds moving through still need the fuel. Keep at least one feeder going through November. Around Little Rock, there is a real case for never taking it down: that is where Arkansas's winter Rufous are, and where most of the state's rarest hummingbirds have been found.

Do any hummingbirds stay in Arkansas for the winter?

Ruby-throated does not — the last leave central Arkansas in early November. But Rufous Hummingbird spends part of the winter in Arkansas most years, arriving as Ruby-throated is departing and staying into March, with sightings concentrated heavily around Little Rock. Anna's and Black-chinned have both wintered here in small numbers as well. None of these is a bird to expect at any given feeder, but a hummingbird in a central Arkansas yard in January is no longer a surprise to the people who track them.

Why We Built This Calendar

Pop's Birding has been helping hummingbird lovers for three generations, and one of the questions our customers ask most often is simply "when do they leave?" For Arkansas, almost every answer online gives a single date for the whole state. That is closer to right here than in a lot of states — the whole of Arkansas arrives within about two weeks — but it falls apart in the fall, when Northwest Arkansas is empty two to three weeks before Little Rock is. A single statewide departure date would have Fayetteville readers waiting on birds that have already gone, and Little Rock readers pulling feeders while birds are still coming through. We built a calendar that tells you the truth for where you actually live.

How We Built This Calendar

The timing here comes from eBird checklist data (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) for 2016 through 2025, pulled in August 2026. Rather than average the whole state, we followed four counties chosen for landscape rather than population, one in each of the natural divisions the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission uses to describe the state: Washington in the Ozarks, Garland in the Ouachitas, Pulaski in the Arkansas River Valley, and Crittenden in the Mississippi Delta. The species list and every rare-bird record come from the Arkansas Records Committee's review list and from Tumlison and Kannan's 2023 survey of rare birds in Arkansas in the Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science.

For arrivals and departures we did not simply take the first week a species appeared. A single checklist can put a bird on the map without meaning the season has started, so we counted a week only when reporting cleared a real threshold, was backed by a meaningful number of checklists, and held for consecutive weeks — and we checked the raw checklist count behind every arrival and departure week, not just the percentage, because a county with light birding traffic can cross a percentage line on a handful of reports. The Delta is the one region where that matters: Crittenden County's checklist volume is a small fraction of the other three, so its late-April arrival is the only week there that clears the bar, and no departure week does — which is why this page gives the Delta a range rather than a week.

The finding that surprised us is that Arkansas arrives together and leaves apart. Hot Springs and Little Rock both get their first real numbers in the last week of March, and Fayetteville is only a week or two behind — a tight spring by any state's standard. But the back half of the year splits: Northwest Arkansas peaks in the first week of August and is essentially empty by mid-October, while Hot Springs and Little Rock do not peak until the third week of September, six weeks later — and Little Rock holds birds into November. The same species, on the same calendar in spring, runs two to three weeks apart in fall. The other thing the county data showed is how intensely the Ouachitas concentrate hummingbirds: at Hot Springs's peak, Ruby-throated is on 64% of all checklists, nearly two of every three, against a statewide high of 38%.

Two of Arkansas's rarer hummingbirds are real but deliberately kept off the charts. Broad-billed Hummingbird has seven accepted state records, the most recent in 2025, yet its eBird signal is effectively zero — the only two nonzero weeks sit exactly at eBird's rounding floor — so it is real and committee-accepted but far too sparse to chart. Allen's Hummingbird is the opposite kind of case: a single week of signal in March, which turns out to be Arkansas's one and only accepted record, a male photographed in Bryant in March 2019. Neither belongs on a season chart, for different reasons. We built two charts because a shared scale cannot hold this state: Ruby-throated peaks near four in ten checklists, and the winter visitors peak below one in five hundred, which on one chart is a flat line. On their own chart, at their own scale, Rufous, Anna's and Black-chinned turn out to share a real, repeating winter window — the actual answer to "what is that hummingbird at my feeder in January." What is original here is the county-level comparison and the finding that came out of it. This is not a restatement of eBird's own bar charts, and it is not a national average with Arkansas written at the top.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Arkansas statewide and county-level (Washington, Garland, Pulaski, Crittenden), 2016–2025. Source for all seasonal timing and the regional arrival and departure pattern.
• Arkansas Records Committee, Rare Birds of Arkansas review list (Arkansas Audubon Society). Source for which hummingbird species are review species with ten or fewer state records, and for Rufous's status as a regular occurrence.
• Tumlison, R. and Kannan, R. (2023). "Rare Birds in Arkansas: Historical Observations and New Records." Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science 77, Article 17. Source for the individual records of Broad-billed, Broad-tailed, Calliope, Black-chinned, Mexican Violetear, Rivoli's and Buff-bellied Hummingbirds in Arkansas.
• Tumlison, R. and Kannan, R. (2023). "New Species of Birds Reported in Arkansas Since 2009." Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science 77, Article 16. Source for Arkansas's single Allen's Hummingbird record.
• Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Ruby-throated Hummingbird brochure (Free Publications). Source for Ruby-throated as the only hummingbird that nests in Arkansas and for the late-April-to-mid-August nesting window.
• Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, A Study Guide for the Natural Divisions of Arkansas. Source for the Ozark, Ouachita, Arkansas River Valley and Mississippi Alluvial Plain divisions used to choose the four regions.