New York is big enough that a single date is never quite right — and the real pattern doesn't split cleanly along a simple upstate/downstate line. Long Island and New York City see their first hummingbirds nearly two weeks before Buffalo and Syracuse do, but Long Island doesn't hold onto them any longer for it — it empties out almost as early as Upstate does. It's Manhattan and the Hudson Valley that genuinely run later on both ends.

The short answer: Ruby-throated Hummingbird is New York's only confirmed breeding species, arriving late April in the New York City area and Long Island, and by early May farther upstate. Most of the state — Upstate, Long Island, and Brooklyn — empties out by early October; Manhattan and the rest of the Hudson Valley run about two weeks longer, into mid-to-late October. Real winter rarities — genuine, committee-accepted, not folklore — show up most years from November through March, so keeping a feeder up after Ruby-throated leaves is a real, not token, chance at something rarer.

New York Hummingbird Timing at a Glance

New to feeding hummingbirds? Start with our guide to attracting hummingbirds in New York for species, feeders, nectar, and native plants. This page is the timing deep dive.

New York's Hummingbird Season at a Glance

Ruby-throated Hummingbird so overwhelmingly dominates New York's numbers that showing every species on one shared-scale chart would flatten the rarer ones into invisible flat lines. So this is three charts, not one — each showing a real season shape instead of a flattened one.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, statewide, on its own scale — New York's only confirmed breeder.

That chart tells the main story, but New York also has two real tiers of rare visitors — species tiered "Migrant/Winter Visitor" and "Rare" respectively, verified against the workbook's own species status records, not just a percentage cutoff. Each is shown on its own chart, scaled to when it actually occurs, since both are flat for roughly two-thirds of the year.

Rufous Hummingbird, statewide — New York's one genuine, recurring winter visitor, zoomed to September–April.

Black-chinned, Broad-billed, Calliope, and Allen's Hummingbird, statewide — genuine, committee-accepted rarities, zoomed to September–April. A seventh species, Anna's Hummingbird, has 3 verified New York records but is too sparse to show a reliable seasonal shape on a chart — a real record, just not a chartable one.

January, February & March: The Quiet Season

What to do: If you kept a feeder up from the fall for a chance at a rarity, this is exactly the stretch it might still pay off. Otherwise, there's nothing to put out yet.

April: Arrival Begins

What to do: Have your feeder up by late April if you're anywhere downstate or on Long Island — including most of the Hudson Valley. Westchester is the one Hudson Valley county that runs on Upstate's slower schedule; there's no rush there yet.

May: Arrival Completes, Nesting Begins

What to do: Keep feeders clean and full even if visits seem to drop off — that's nesting behavior, not birds leaving.

June – July: Nesting Season

What to do: Skip the insecticide near feeders — nesting females rely on small insects for protein alongside nectar.

August: Peak Season Upstate

What to do: Keep everything full — Upstate feeders are at their busiest of the whole year right now.

Keep pests off without pesticides — hummingbirds rely on small insects for protein, so spraying near a feeder can cost them a food source, not just protect one. AspenPerch®'s built-in ant moat blocks ants with a water barrier, and Hummguard™ Nectar Tips keep bees and wasps out without changing anything for the birds. Shop AspenPerch® →  |  Shop Hummguard™ →

September: Peak Season Downstate & Long Island

What to do: Southbound migration is already underway even as local numbers peak — birds passing through add to birds still nesting, so don't read a busy feeder as "more staying," necessarily.

This is the month to be generous, not economical. Hummingbirds preparing for migration enter hyperphagia, feeding intensively enough to nearly double their body weight before a long flight — birds actively fueling up now need sustained, high-volume refills, not just a topped-off feeder. The large 2lb Nectarlyte® powder or the Nectarade® liquid concentrate keeps you from running dry through the whole fueling window. Shop Nectarlyte® 2lb → | Shop Nectarade® Concentrate →

October: Upstate, Long Island & Brooklyn Go Quiet First

What to do: Don't assume "downstate leaves last" as a single rule — Long Island and Brooklyn are actually among the first parts of the state to empty out each fall, while Manhattan and the rest of the Hudson Valley genuinely run later. If you keep feeders up past your local last-sighting date, that's genuinely useful — see November, below.

November: Fall Rarity Season

What to do: None of these four is common, but all are real, committee-accepted New York records worth watching for if your feeder is still up after the local Ruby-throateds have left. Two are recent enough to be genuinely notable: New York's first-ever Black-chinned Hummingbird was found on Randall's Island in Manhattan in November 2023, and its first-ever Allen's Hummingbird — found in Riverhead, Suffolk County, that same October — went on to over-winter into early April the following year, a genuine rarity within a rarity.

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 — Rufous Hummingbird in particular is famously territorial. A second feeder and a second swing, spaced out of sight of each other, gives another bird — the incoming migrant or a displaced resident — its own station to guard instead of fighting over one. Shop a second feeder →  |  Shop swings →

December: Winter Watch

What to do: If you're keeping a winter feeder, a bird that arrived in the fall can plausibly stay through the whole month — check it regularly rather than assuming the season is over.

The Year at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

When do hummingbirds arrive in New York?

Late April in the NYC Metro area, Long Island, and most of the Hudson Valley; early May in Buffalo, Syracuse, and Westchester — the one Hudson Valley county that runs on Upstate's later schedule.

When do hummingbirds leave New York?

Most of the state — Upstate, Long Island, and Brooklyn — is quiet by early October. Manhattan and the rest of the Hudson Valley run about two weeks longer, into mid-to-late October. Ruby-throated is New York's only breeder, so once it leaves, any hummingbird you see afterward is a genuine rarity, not a straggler of the same wave.

When do hummingbirds leave Rochester and the Finger Lakes?

This page's own county-level data doesn't include a Finger Lakes county directly, but Rochester sits climatically close to Syracuse — expect early October, in line with the rest of Upstate New York.

Are there hummingbirds on Long Island in the winter?

Ruby-throated, no — it's gone by early October, actually one of the earliest parts of the state to empty out. But Long Island shares the same real chance at Rufous and the state's other winter/fall rarities as anywhere else in New York — including New York's first-ever Allen's Hummingbird, found in Riverhead in October 2023. Keeping a feeder up through November and December is a genuine, not token, chance at something rarer.

What hummingbirds are in the Hudson Valley?

Ruby-throated Hummingbird from late April (Putnam and points south) or early May (Westchester) through mid-to-late October — genuinely one of the longer seasons in the state on both ends. Rufous, Allen's, Black-chinned, Broad-billed, and Calliope have all been documented in New York as genuine, committee-accepted fall and winter visitors.

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 a place the size of New York: Long Island and NYC get their first arrivals nearly two weeks before Buffalo and Syracuse do, and — as it turns out — don't all leave together either.

How We Built This Calendar

Source and scope. eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2016–2025 — statewide, plus seven counties chosen for real climate and geography spread: Erie (Buffalo) and Onondaga (Syracuse) representing Upstate; Westchester, Putnam, and New York County (Manhattan) representing the NYC Metro area and Hudson Valley; Kings County (Brooklyn) as part of that same metro geography; and Suffolk County representing Long Island.

How we handle outliers and rarities. We don't take every reported sighting at face value. Before any species goes on a chart or into a percentage claim, we check its shape across the full year: a bird reported steadily across many weeks and multiple years reflects a genuine seasonal pattern, while a sharp spike in one tight window with no recurrence almost always means a single individual bird was found and heavily reported — not a population pattern. Anna's Hummingbird is the clearest example on this page: it clears New York's own official species records as a real, verified visitor, but only 3 total documented sightings exist in the dataset's span — real, but too sparse to plot a reliable seasonal shape, so it's named here rather than charted.

A genuine finding, not just a methodology description. We expected New York's regional arrival gap to simply mirror the departure gap — that's the pattern we found in other states we've built this calendar for. New York does something more specific: an early arrival doesn't always buy a longer season. Long Island and Brooklyn arrive among the earliest in the state each spring but are also among the first to empty out each fall, while Manhattan and the rest of the Hudson Valley run about two weeks longer on the back end. Westchester is its own small exception within that pattern — it arrives on Upstate's slower spring schedule rather than the rest of the Hudson Valley's earlier one, but still departs on the Hudson Valley's later fall schedule.

What's original here. The county-level regional comparison, the departure-timing finding above, and the tier-verified rarity charts are Pop's Birding's own analysis of the raw eBird data — not a rewrite of eBird's own bar charts, and not available anywhere else in this form.

Sources

• eBird bar chart data, Cornell Lab of Ornithology — New York statewide and county-level (Erie, Onondaga, Westchester, Putnam, New York, Kings, Suffolk), 2016–2025. Source for all month-by-month seasonal figures and the regional arrival/departure pattern.
• New York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC), a committee of the New York State Ornithological Association. Source for New York's official rare-bird review process, species status context, and the Black-chinned and Allen's Hummingbird first-state-record details.

Event dates and formats change from year to year. Check organizer websites before making plans.

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