Mississippi doesn't run on one hummingbird calendar — it runs on four. Ruby-throated Hummingbird reaches Central Mississippi by mid-March, the river and the north by the last week of the month, and builds to a statewide peak of 38% of checklists in the second week of September before a fast exit in October. But the Gulf Coast doesn't follow that script at all: Harrison County keeps real, if thin, Ruby-throated reports through every month of the year, including a genuine second wave that rebuilds each winter. That's also where five western visitors show up — Rufous and Buff-bellied along the coast, Black-chinned in both places, and two genuine rarities, Calliope and Broad-tailed, that Mississippi's own bird records committee still requires documentation for. Here's how it unfolds, month by month.

The short answer: Central Mississippi by mid-March, the river and the north by late March, reliably common everywhere by early April, a statewide peak in the second week of September, and gone from most of the state by mid-to-late October — except the Gulf Coast, which never fully empties and picks up real winter-visitor traffic instead.

Mississippi's Hummingbird Season at a Glance

Before the month-by-month detail, here's the whole season in three pictures. The first is Ruby-throated's full-year curve — the only species with a peak big enough to fill a chart on its own. The second is Mississippi's three regular winter visitors, the birds Mississippi's own records committee doesn't require documentation for. The third is different again: two genuine rarities that the committee does still review every report of, real and recurring but on a thinner, more sporadic pattern than the first two. We split them into three charts because Ruby-throated's peak is more than forty times the winter visitors' highest point, and because "regular" and "review-required" are two different real categories in Mississippi's own record-keeping, not just two sizes of small number.

That chart tells you who's biggest, but it hides the three species that show up reliably every winter without Mississippi's records committee asking for documentation — Rufous's peak is less than a fortieth of Ruby-throated's, so on a shared scale all three would flatten into a line along the bottom axis. Here they are on their own scale instead, where their real winter season is easy to see.

The last two are a different case again: real, recurring, but rare enough that Mississippi's bird records committee still reviews every report. Calliope and Broad-tailed's peaks are close in size to the winter visitors above, but their shape is thinner and more concentrated — worth their own chart to keep that distinction clear, not just to avoid crowding the one above.

How often each species turns up on eBird checklists, week by week — statewide, 2016-2025. Source: eBird bar chart data (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), 2016-2025 (pulled Sep 2026). Mississippi's rarest hummingbirds — Anna's, Allen's, Broad-billed, White-eared, and Mexican Violetear — are all real, committee-accepted birds with one to four records apiece and no reliable multi-week pattern in the data, and can't be charted.

Regional Arrival and Departure Snapshot

Here's the same timing on the map. Central Mississippi, the river, and the north all run a fairly ordinary spring-to-fall season; the Gulf Coast is the outlier, present in every month we track.

January: Rufous at Its Statewide Peak

Ruby-throated is essentially silent inland in January — Central Mississippi, the river, and the north all sit at zero. The Gulf Coast keeps a real trickle going: Harrison County reports on 1.0% of checklists in the first week and 1.8% in the second, enough to clear our own reliability bar before dipping again later in the month. January belongs to Rufous Hummingbird, which hits its statewide peak here — 0.84% of checklists in the fourth week, the high point of its whole year. Hinds County runs hotter still: 3.6% of Jackson-area checklists in the very first week of January, its own local peak, well before the statewide high point. Black-chinned is building toward a peak of its own a few weeks out, and in Hinds County it's already reporting on nearly 1.8% of checklists by the fourth week. January is also a real rarity month on Mississippi's own record books — the state's first accepted Anna's Hummingbird was a female that stayed from 21 December 1994 into 15 January 1995 at a Bay St. Louis feeder in Hancock County, and Mississippi's fourth accepted Anna's, in the same town, was found on 22 December 2005. If you see any hummingbird in Mississippi this month, photograph it and report it to the Mississippi Bird Records Committee.

February: The Quiet Month, With One Local Surprise

February is the true quiet stretch — Ruby-throated is at zero on the river, in the north, and in Central Mississippi, and even the Gulf Coast dips under our reliability bar for most of the month before climbing back above it in the last week. Rufous is fading from its January high everywhere except one place: Harrison County's own Rufous peak actually lands here, not in January — 1.6% of Gulfport-area checklists in the first week of February, its highest reporting rate of the whole year, even though the statewide high point was a month earlier. Broad-tailed Hummingbird is quietly building in Hinds County, climbing from 1.4% to 1.7% of checklists across the month on its way to a March peak. February is also feeder-check month statewide: with real winter activity possible on the Coast and around Jackson, and the first Central Mississippi scouts still about a month out, this is the window to get a feeder ready before the season actually needs it.

March: Central Mississippi Leads, the River and North Wait

March is when the season actually begins inland, and it begins in the middle of the state. Hinds County crosses our arrival threshold in the second week of March — 4.0% of checklists, then 6.7% the following week — while the river and the north are both still at zero. By the last week of the month both catch up fast: Warren County jumps to 6.5% and DeSoto to 7.4%, each clearing the bar for the first time. The Gulf Coast, already well past "reliably common," keeps climbing too, from 11.9% to 14.7% across the month. March also holds a real, thin local season of its own: Hinds County's Broad-tailed Hummingbird reaches its own peak here, 2.4% of checklists in the first week, before fading out by April.

"Arrives" is the first of two consecutive weeks where at least 1% of a county's checklists report the species — backed, for the three higher-traffic counties, by at least five actual checklists behind that percentage (Warren County's lower weekly checklist volume uses the percentage alone, per this project's standard thin-county adjustment). "Reliably common" is the first week a county's reports reach 25% of that county's own peak, not a statewide one. We checked the checklist count behind every one of these weeks, not just the percentage: DeSoto's second-week-of-April threshold rests on 132 checklists, Warren's first-week-of-April threshold on 101 — both comfortably real signal, not a thin county crossing a line on weak data.

Get a feeder up before the first bird arrives, not after. Mississippi's arrival staggers across about two weeks inland — Central Mississippi in the second week of March, the river and the north in the last — so a feeder out by early March costs you nothing, while one 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: Every Region On, the Coast Hits an Early High

By April, every county we track is reporting Ruby-throated. Central Mississippi is already near its eventual peak — 32% to 37% of checklists across the month, not far off what Hinds County will report at the true statewide high point in September. The river and the north are still climbing fast: Warren goes from 11% to 31%, DeSoto from 16% to 38%. The Gulf Coast does something none of the other three counties do — Harrison hits 25% of checklists in the third week of April, a real secondary high point months before its actual annual peak in September. That's worth remembering going into May, because the Coast doesn't just keep climbing from here.

May: Inland Settles In, the Coast Crashes

Inland, May is the wave finishing its work — every county we track is reliably common by now, and Central Mississippi keeps building toward summer, 32% to 36% of checklists across the month. The Gulf Coast tells a completely different story. Harrison County, still at 18.5% in the first week of May, falls off a cliff by the third — 1.6%, then 0.5% in the fourth week, a near-total collapse from an April high point that looked like the season was in full swing. Nothing else we track does this: every inland county moves in one smooth arc from spring into summer, and the Coast alone has a real, sample-size-backed dip in the middle of its year. We dig into why in How We Built This Calendar, below.

June: Nesting Settles In, Central Mississippi Surges

Females become secretive around the nest in June, which can make feeder activity look quieter even though the birds haven't gone anywhere — they're spending more time incubating and less time visibly perched. Males take no part in nest duties and stay visible and territorial. Central Mississippi is the exception to any lull: Hinds County climbs from 23% to 37% of checklists across June, already closing in on where the statewide peak will land in September. The north holds steady and high, 29% to 35% all month, while the river stays much lower, mostly under 10%. The Gulf Coast stays low too, still recovering from its May crash.

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July: Building Toward the Peak

July is the run-up. Central Mississippi keeps climbing, 43% to 57% of checklists across the month, as fledglings join adults at feeders and flowers. The Gulf Coast is recovering from its spring dip but still well below its eventual peak — 3.1% to 6.7%. The river and the north both build steadily too, each still a good six weeks from their own high points. Statewide, this is the quiet build before August's real climb.

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August: The Climb to the Peak

August is when Mississippi's numbers go vertical almost everywhere. The north is already running hot — DeSoto hits 50% of checklists twice this month — and the Gulf Coast finally breaks out of its spring-summer slump, climbing from 6.8% to 18.8% across the month as it heads into its real annual peak. Central Mississippi holds high and steady, 44% to 57%, and the river builds too, swinging between 7% and 36% week to week. Birds statewide are in hyperphagia, the intensive pre-migration feeding phase that packs on fat ahead of the flight south.

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September: The Statewide Peak, and Four Different Peak Weeks

September holds Mississippi's statewide high point — 38% of checklists in the second week — but the four counties we track don't actually peak together. Central Mississippi peaks earliest, 62% in the very first week of the month. The Gulf Coast peaks alongside the statewide number, in the second week. The north peaks latest of all: DeSoto reaches 80% of checklists in the third week, the single highest rate we track anywhere in Mississippi, a full week after the statewide high point. The river's own peak actually happened back in August, weeks before any of the others. Whatever is driving each county's own high point, it isn't one shared statewide wave moving through in lockstep — it's four separate local peaks that happen to cluster in late summer. Numbers stay elevated through the rest of the month everywhere — statewide, checklists are still at 35% in the last week of September, and DeSoto is still above 68%. The real crash is next month.

October: The Fast Exit

October is when most of Mississippi's Ruby-throated Hummingbirds leave, and it happens fast. Statewide, checklists fall from 26% in the first week to 16%, then 7%, then under 2% by the last week — roughly a 90% drop in a month. Central Mississippi and the river both empty earliest: Hinds County is down to 2% by the fourth week and effectively gone, and Warren County is already at zero by the third. The north holds on longest — DeSoto is still at 5% in the first week of November before it, too, is gone. The Gulf Coast follows the same steep fall — 27% down to 1.6% across the month — but unlike the other three counties, it isn't really "leaving" so much as thinning out ahead of a real winter presence that rebuilds in December. October is also when Mississippi's western visitors start showing up: the last week of the month is the first real pulse of Rufous statewide.

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November: Buff-bellied Builds, Calliope Arrives

Ruby-throated is essentially gone statewide in November, and this is instead the start of Mississippi's real winter-visitor season. Buff-bellied Hummingbird is building fast on the Gulf Coast — Harrison County goes from 1.1% to 1.7% of checklists across the month, on its way to a December peak. Rufous is rising too, 0.38% statewide in the first week. Calliope Hummingbird — a genuine rarity that Mississippi's records committee still reviews every report of — is essentially invisible until the very end of the month, then appears from nowhere: 0.15% in the first two weeks statewide, then a sharp jump heading into December. Mississippi's own record books have real November history behind that pattern: the state's third accepted Anna's Hummingbird was found at a Starkville feeder in Oktibbeha County on 19 November 2005, and one of the state's three accepted Calliope records in recent years was a bird present 2 through 8 November 2021 in Forrest County.

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December: Mississippi's Biggest Rarity Month

December is when three of Mississippi's winter species hit their own peak, and two of them peak in the same place. Harrison County is the real center of gravity: Buff-bellied Hummingbird reaches 4.3% of Gulfport-area checklists in the second week, its highest rate anywhere in the state all year, and Calliope reaches 3.8% in the first week, also its statewide high point. Black-chinned reaches its own Harrison County high point the same week, 2.2%, though statewide it won't hit its actual peak until January. Rufous keeps climbing toward its own December high of 0.67% by the third week — not quite January's statewide peak, but close. December also holds this page's clearest individual-level evidence: a sub-adult male Broad-tailed Hummingbird was banded on 30 January 2021 after being present at a Jackson feeder in Hinds County from 28 December 2020 through 7 April 2021 — a real, dated bird whose actual stay lines up almost exactly with the season Hinds County's own eBird checklists independently show for the species. A Calliope banded at an Ocean Springs feeder in Jackson County, on the coast, was present from early December 2020 into 20 February 2021. And Mississippi's only accepted Allen's Hummingbird record, a photo-documented adult female, was found at the same Bay St. Louis feeder as the state's fourth Anna's, on 22 December 2005.

The Year at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

When do hummingbirds come back to Mississippi?

Central Mississippi (Hinds County) sees its first real arrivals in the second week of March, followed by the river (Warren County) and the north (DeSoto County) in the last week of the month. The Gulf Coast doesn't really have an arrival — Harrison County keeps a real, if thin, Ruby-throated presence through most of the winter. Statewide, reliably common arrivals begin in the last week of March, and feeders should be up by the first week of March in Central Mississippi and by mid-March on the river and in the north.

When do hummingbirds leave Mississippi?

Most of the state, yes — but not all of it. Central Mississippi and the river both leave by mid-October, and the north by late October. Statewide, checklists fall from 26% of reports in the first week of October to under 2% by the last, a 90% drop in a month. The Gulf Coast is the exception: it never fully empties, and that's exactly when Mississippi's winter visitors — Rufous, Buff-bellied, and Black-chinned — start showing up.

When do hummingbirds leave north Mississippi?

Later than the rest of the inland state. DeSoto County is still reporting Ruby-throated on 4.8% of checklists in the last week of October and 5.1% the first week of November — when Central Mississippi and the river have already been at or near zero for a week or two. The north arrives with the rest of inland Mississippi in late March but holds on into November, the last inland region to empty.

Are there hummingbirds in south Mississippi in winter?

Yes — more so than anywhere else in the state. The Gulf Coast (Harrison County) is Mississippi's real winter-hummingbird hotspot: Buff-bellied and Calliope both reach their statewide peaks there in December, Black-chinned peaks there too, and a genuine trickle of Ruby-throated reports continues through the season. Photograph anything you see at a coastal feeder between November and February — there's a real chance it isn't a Ruby-throated at all.

What types of hummingbirds are in Mississippi?

Eleven species have accepted Mississippi records. Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only breeder and the only species present every month of the year. Rufous, Buff-bellied, and Black-chinned are regular winter visitors that Mississippi's records committee doesn't require documentation for. Calliope and Broad-tailed are genuine but rarer, both still reviewed by the committee. The remaining five — Anna's, Allen's, Broad-billed, White-eared, and Mexican Violetear — each have just one to four accepted records. See our full guide to all 11 species for details on each.

How long do hummingbirds stay in Mississippi?

About seven months for most of the state — mid-to-late March through mid-to-late October. On the Gulf Coast, Ruby-throated's own presence stretches close to year-round, and adding the western-visitor season on top of that — Rufous, Buff-bellied, Black-chinned, Calliope, and Broad-tailed, all real between November and February — makes Mississippi one of the longer hummingbird-watching windows in this series.

Should I keep a feeder up through a Mississippi winter?

Yes, especially on the Gulf Coast, where the odds of a genuine winter visitor are real rather than a long shot. Rufous and Buff-bellied are both regular enough that Mississippi's records committee doesn't require documentation for them; Black-chinned is regular too. Calliope and Broad-tailed are rarer, but both have multiple accepted records from the past few years, including individually banded birds that stayed for months. A late-season hummingbird anywhere in Mississippi is worth a photograph and a report to the Mississippi Bird Records Committee, whatever you think it is.

Why We Built This Calendar

Pop's Birding has been helping hummingbird lovers for three generations. One of the questions our customers ask most often is "When do hummingbirds arrive and leave my state?" — we built this calendar to give a direct, sourced answer, not a generic one. Most timing advice online gives a single date for an entire state, which is exactly wrong for Mississippi: Central Mississippi arrives nearly two weeks before the river and the north, and the Gulf Coast doesn't have an "arrives" or "leaves" at all in the way the rest of the state does. A single statewide date would flatten a real coast-to-inland difference into a false average. We wanted a calendar that tells you the truth for where you actually live, including the parts of the state where "when do they leave" isn't quite the right question.

How We Built This Calendar

We pulled eBird bar chart data for Mississippi statewide and for four counties — Harrison (Gulfport, the Gulf Coast), Hinds (Jackson, Central Mississippi), Warren (Vicksburg, the river), and DeSoto (Southaven, the north) — chosen to span the state from the Tennessee line to the Gulf by way of the capital and the Mississippi River bluff, covering 2016 through 2025, and read the seasonal shape and regional pattern directly off the reporting rates ourselves.

Two definitions drive every regional date on this page. "Arrives" and "leaves" are the first and last of two consecutive weeks in which at least 1% of a region's checklists report the species; for the three higher-traffic counties and statewide, that's paired with a floor of at least five real checklists behind the percentage, since a thinly-birded region can cross a percentage line on a handful of reports that a busier one never would. Warren County's own weekly checklist volume is thin enough that we used the percentage threshold alone there — the same adjustment this project applies to any low-traffic region. "Reliably common" is the first week a region's reports reach 25% of that region's own peak, not a statewide one, because a coastal county, a river county, and a county on the Tennessee line don't share a baseline. We checked the raw checklist count behind every threshold on this page, not just the percentage — DeSoto's "reliably common" week rests on 132 checklists, Warren's on 101, both comfortably real signal rather than a thin county crossing a line on weak data.

Two genuinely different reasons keep a species off the charts above. Anna's, Allen's, Broad-billed, White-eared, and Mexican Violetear are all real, committee-accepted Mississippi birds — one to four records apiece, spread across three decades, with no reliable multi-week shape for a chart to show. Calliope and Broad-tailed are a different case: both were reclassified during this project's own research from an older, thinner characterization to Rare/Casual, because Mississippi's 2022 Annual Report documents multiple accepted records for each from 2020–2021 alone, with activity continuing into the recent past — a real, if sporadic, pattern rather than a one-off. We should note plainly that this specific report (Mississippi Kite Vol. 53, December 2023) sits on a file host that resisted our own automated verification this session, the same way it resisted this project's research pass originally; the record numbers and dates cited above come from that prior, already-vetted research rather than a fresh direct read by us.

The genuine finding worth calling out is really two findings, at two different levels of evidence. At the county level: Harrison County doesn't follow the single spring-to-fall arc every inland county does. It climbs through March and April to a real secondary high point — 25% of checklists in the third week of April — then crashes to under 1% by the end of May, stays low through June, and only then climbs a second time to its true annual peak in September. No inland county does this; each of the other three moves in one smooth wave. The most likely explanation is a mix of two real things this data can't fully separate: April's number is probably inflated by migrants staging on the coast before continuing north, on top of the genuine drop in visible activity that comes with the secretive, incubating phase of nesting everywhere else in the state — but that's the most likely reading of the pattern, not a measured cause. At the individual level, a sub-adult male Broad-tailed Hummingbird banded in Hinds County on 30 January 2021 had actually been present there since 28 December 2020, and stayed until 7 April 2021 — real, dated boundaries for one bird's actual stay that line up closely with the season Hinds County's own eBird checklists independently show for the species (first detected in January, peaking in early March, last detected in early April). Individual-level banding data corroborating an aggregate checklist pattern, for the same bird, in the same county, is a stronger form of evidence than either source alone, and it's the kind of cross-check that's only possible where a state's own records committee publishes this level of individual-bird detail. The county-level comparison, the checklist-backed threshold, and this banding-to-checklist correspondence are original analysis on our part, not a rewrite of eBird's own bar charts.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Mississippi statewide and county-level (Harrison, Hinds, Warren, DeSoto), 2016-2025. Source for all month-by-month seasonal figures and the regional arrival/departure pattern.
• Bird Checklist and Records, Mississippi Ornithological Society / Mississippi Bird Records Committee (MBRC); and Mississippi Bird Records Committee Annual Report–2009, The Mississippi Kite 40(1), July 2010. Source for each species' review status and the specific accepted-record dates and locations cited throughout this page.
• Mississippi Bird Records Committee 2022 Annual Report, The Mississippi Kite 53, December 2023 (as researched and verified elsewhere in this project). Source for the 2020–2021 Calliope and Broad-tailed Hummingbird records, including the individually banded birds cited in the November and December sections.
• Woodrey, M.S., "10-Volume Index to the Mississippi Kite: 1991–2000," The Mississippi Kite 30(2), December 2000. Source for Buff-bellied Hummingbird's recurring 1990s Gulf Coast pattern.

Want feeder setup, nectar ratios, and native plant picks for your part of the state? See our full guide to attracting hummingbirds in Mississippi.