Mississippi's documented hummingbird list runs to eleven species — exactly matching neighboring Arkansas, fewer than Alabama's thirteen or Louisiana's fourteen, but well ahead of Tennessee's nine. Only one of those eleven, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, is a regular breeder here. The other ten range from genuine, recurring winter visitors along the Gulf Coast to single-occurrence rarities that have shown up exactly once in the state's recorded history.

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

All 11 documented Mississippi hummingbird species, grouped by tier — statewide eBird data, 2016–2025, cross-checked against the Mississippi Bird Records Committee's own accepted-record history.

The Hummingbird You're Most Likely to See

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Mississippi's only regular breeder, and it dominates the state's hummingbird activity almost completely — its statewide eBird frequency peaks above 37%, more than forty times higher than the next most frequent species. It's present from late March into October across the whole state, and it's increasingly clear it doesn't fully leave: Mississippi Ornithological Society records, built on birds identified and banded in the hand rather than sight records alone, document Ruby-throated at Gulf Coast feeders in every month of the year.

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.

Mississippi Hummingbirds in Winter

Once Mississippi's Ruby-throated breeders start thinning out in fall, the state's hummingbird story shifts to a smaller, genuinely regular cast of Gulf Coast winter visitors.

Rufous Hummingbird

One of only three species Mississippi's records committee treats as regularly occurring in the state, alongside Ruby-throated and Black-chinned — no rarity code attached, just a real, expected winter visitor, most reliable along the coast but recorded well inland too.

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

The second of that regular trio — Mississippi's own checklist codes it a rare winter resident rather than a documentation-required rarity, concentrated along the coast but not confined there.

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. Worth knowing honestly: female and immature Black-chinned are essentially inseparable from female Ruby-throated in the field without in-hand measurement — a real identification limit, not a gap in this guide.

Buff-bellied Hummingbird

A genuine coastal winter visitor rather than a Ruby-throated stand-in — uncommon but recurring in the six southernmost counties (Jackson, Harrison, Hancock, and neighbors), and only casual to accidental once you move away from the coast.

Quick ID: A notably large hummingbird for Mississippi, with a striking red bill tipped in black — the single best field mark. The back is bronze-green and the belly a warm buff color, distinct from any other species on this list.

If You're Lucky: The Southeast Rarities

Seven more species have accepted Mississippi records, but they split into two genuinely different categories. Two — Broad-tailed and Calliope Hummingbird — have real, recent, recurring activity. The other five have one to four accepted records total, most of them decades old, and nothing since.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

At least three Mississippi Bird Records Committee (MBRC) accepted records, including two from the 2020–2021 season alone — genuine recent activity, not just an old sighting on the books.

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 Mississippi's other rare Selasphorus-type visitors.

Calliope Hummingbird

Carries the same kind of recent pattern: three MBRC-accepted records, all from 2020–2021, at three different locations along the coastal counties.

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.

Allen's Hummingbird

A single accepted Mississippi record — a female at Bay St. Louis, Hancock County, in December 2005 — and nothing documented since.

Quick ID: Males glow with a reddish-orange throat and typically a solid green back, giving a mixed orange-and-green look. Females and immatures are green above with rufous-washed flanks and rufous in the tail — plumage so close to female Rufous Hummingbird that Cornell rates the two "very difficult to separate" without an in-hand tail measurement.

Anna's Hummingbird

Four accepted Mississippi records spanning 1994 to 2005, but MBRC's own code for the species remains "Accidental" — the committee's rarest category, even with four records on the books.

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.

Broad-billed Hummingbird

A single accepted record — an immature male at Ocean Springs, Jackson County, from November to December 1998.

Quick ID: Named for the field mark that settles it at a glance — a bright red bill tipped in black. Males show a shimmering sapphire-blue throat over an emerald-green body; females are duller, golden-green above and gray below, but carry that same diagnostic red-and-black bill.

Mexican Violetear

One accepted Mississippi record, in Olive Branch, DeSoto County, in October 1999 — a multi-observer sighting later reclassified from Green Violet-ear after a 2016 taxonomic split. 

Quick ID: A larger hummingbird than the rest of Mississippi'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, both carrying the violet patches.

White-eared Hummingbird

One documented Mississippi occurrence — a long-staying feeder bird at Gulfport, Harrison County, across the winter of 1995–96. (No dedicated species guide exists yet, so this name isn't linked.)

Quick ID: Told at a glance by a bold white stripe behind the eye set against an otherwise dark face — visible in every plumage. Males add an emerald throat and a violet flash on the forehead in good light; the bright red, black-tipped bill shows on both sexes.

Mississippi Hummingbirds at a Glance

Ruby-throated Hummingbird's dominance here isn't a close call — its statewide eBird frequency peaks above 37%, and every other documented species stays under 1% at its own peak. With a gap that wide, a bar chart wouldn't show anything the numbers below don't already say plainly, so this section skips straight to the table.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many hummingbird species have been recorded in Mississippi?

Eleven hummingbird species have documented, accepted records in Mississippi. Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only regular breeder; the other ten are winter visitors, rare-but-recurring visitors, or single-occurrence historic records.

What's the only hummingbird that breeds in Mississippi?

Ruby-throated Hummingbird is Mississippi's only breeding hummingbird, present statewide from late March through early October, with a growing body of banding-confirmed winter records along the Gulf Coast.

Which hummingbirds are Mississippi's regular winter visitors?

Mississippi's records committee treats Rufous, Black-chinned, and Buff-bellied Hummingbird as the state's genuine, regularly occurring winter visitors, concentrated along the Gulf Coast. Ruby-throated Hummingbird, the state's only breeder, also has confirmed banding records at coastal feeders in every month of the year.

What rare hummingbirds have been recorded in Mississippi?

Seven rare-tier species have documented Mississippi records. Broad-tailed and Calliope Hummingbird both have multiple accepted records from 2020–2021, a genuine recent pattern. Allen's, Anna's, Broad-billed, Mexican Violetear, and White-eared Hummingbird are each historic — one to four accepted records, with nothing recent.

How do you tell a male Ruby-throated from a male Black-chinned hummingbird in Mississippi?

In good light, the throat color settles it — Ruby-throated glows red, Black-chinned shows a thin purple band under mostly black. Females of the two species are essentially impossible to separate in the field without in-hand measurement, a real identification limit rather than a gap in this guide.

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. Most general references cover Mississippi's hummingbirds with a single sentence about Ruby-throated and move on. That misses ten more documented species — some genuinely regular winter visitors, others single accepted records going back decades — each one verified against the Mississippi Bird Records Committee's own accepted-record history, not just eBird's raw checklist counts.

How We Created This Guide

Source and scope. eBird checklist data for Mississippi, 2016–2025, pulled statewide plus four representative counties — Harrison (Gulfport, the coastal area where most of the state's rare winter visitors actually show up), DeSoto (the state's far northern corner), Hinds (Jackson, the capital), and Warren (Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River) — cross-checked against the Mississippi Bird Records Committee's (MBRC) own accepted-record history.

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 species outside Ruby-throated's normal range, we checked the actual weekly checklist counts behind the percentage, then cross-referenced against MBRC's own annual reports, which list exact accepted-record dates, locations, and review classes. Broad-tailed and Calliope Hummingbird, which might read as borderline in raw eBird data alone, turned out to have genuine, recent, MBRC-documented activity from the 2020–2021 season; the state's other rare species really are single- or few-occurrence historic records with nothing recent.

What makes the dominance claim honest. Ruby-throated Hummingbird's lead over every other Mississippi species isn't a chart-worthy comparison — its statewide eBird frequency clears the next-highest species by more than 35 percentage points at peak, verified directly against the underlying weekly data rather than assumed from general knowledge of the species. With a gap that wide, a bar chart wouldn't add anything the table above doesn't already say.

What's original here. The tiering on this page comes from MBRC's own status codes and dated record counts, not a generic "species recorded" list. Historic/Accidental species — one or a few old records, nothing recent — are called out separately from Rare/Casual species, which have fewer total records but genuine activity within the last several years, a distinction most general references collapse into one undifferentiated "rare" bucket.

Sources

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