Timing derived from eBird data, 2016–2025 (sourced Aug 2026)

West Virginia's hummingbird year runs later and peaks harder than you might expect from a Mid-Atlantic state. Real arrivals don't show up until mid-April even in the lowlands, and the statewide peak doesn't land until the first week of September — nearly 35% of all eBird checklists reporting Ruby-throated that week, the single highest number we've measured anywhere in the region. Then it collapses fast: within a month, that number drops by more than two-thirds. Here's how the whole year actually unfolds, month by month.

The short answer: mid-April across most of the state, late April in the higher mountain counties, peaking in early September, nearly gone by early October.

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

West Virginia's Hummingbird Season at a Glance

One steady breeder with an unusually late, unusually high peak, and a thin but genuine winter visitor — here's the whole season in two pictures.

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 Aug 2026).

Regional Arrival and Departure Snapshot

*Greenbrier's checklist volume is genuinely low (as few as 15 reports in some weeks) — the right geographic category for the mountain-elevation test, but treat its specific dates as less certain than the other counties. Windows derived from eBird bar chart data (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), 2016–2025.

January, February & March: The Deep Quiet

Ruby-throated sits at a flat, literal zero statewide across all three months. Rufous shows the faintest possible trace in January — the tail end of the previous fall's wave, not new arrivals — before disappearing entirely through February and March. If you're the type to plan ahead, this stretch is prep time: give your feeders a thorough off-season cleaning, check for cracks or degraded seals, and stock up on sugar before the real season starts.

April: The Real Season Begins, Late

April is genuinely quiet for most of the month — statewide reports barely register through the third week, sitting under 3%. Real signal doesn't build until the very last week of April, when statewide reports jump to nearly 9%. This is scout territory: the earliest, most adventurous males pushing into the state ahead of the main wave, arriving to establish territory before females follow a bit later. Pop's tip: put your feeder up by late March or the first week of April so it's ready before these first arrivals, especially in Kanawha, Berkeley, and Greenbrier counties, which tend to see activity a little earlier than Monongalia or Wood.

May: The Wave Arrives and Levels Off

May is West Virginia's real arrival month. Statewide reports jump from about 14% in the first week to over 15% by mid-month, then hold nearly flat through the rest of the month rather than continuing to climb. Unlike some states, West Virginia's spring wave lands fast and plateaus quickly — the real climb toward the season's peak doesn't resume until summer.

June: Nesting Season Settles In

Ruby-throated activity holds steady through June, in the 14–17% range statewide, as birds settle into nesting. Females become secretive around the nest during this stretch, which can make feeder activity look quieter even though the birds haven't gone anywhere. Nesting continues into July, with a possible second brood if conditions allow.

July: Building Toward the Peak

Activity climbs steadily through July, from about 20% early in the month to over 25% by month's end, as broods fledge and juveniles join adults at feeders and flowers. This is a genuine, sustained ramp — West Virginia's real peak is still a month away, and it's a bigger one than most states see.

August: Approaching the Peak

August keeps climbing hard, from about 28% early in the month to nearly 34% by the last week — already close to the eventual statewide peak. Birds are deep into hyperphagia, the intensive pre-migration feeding phase that can nearly double a hummingbird's fat reserves ahead of the trip south. Rufous also makes its first scattered appearance of the season this month, though only in ones and twos.

September: The Statewide Peak, Then the Fast Exit

September is West Virginia's busiest hummingbird month by a wide margin, and its shortest-lived one. Statewide reports peak at nearly 35% in the first week — the single highest number we've measured anywhere in the region — then collapse to about 12% by the last week. That's more than a two-thirds drop in a single month, as the bulk of the state's Ruby-throateds leave in a short, concentrated window.

October: The Last Stragglers

By October, Ruby-throated has all but left the state — statewide reports fall from about 4% in the first week to nearly zero by month's end, with only isolated stragglers anywhere. October is also when Rufous activity starts building toward its own thin winter peak. Pop's tip: keep your feeder up for two to three weeks after your last Ruby-throated sighting, and consider leaving at least one up into November or December if you'd like a shot at Rufous.

November: Ruby-throated Gone, Rufous Building

Ruby-throated is completely absent statewide in November. Rufous continues its slow build from October, though it's genuinely thin here — most weeks statewide represent only a handful of checklists. If a hummingbird visits your feeder this month, there's a real chance it's a Rufous rather than a lingering Ruby-throated, simply because nothing else is around to confuse it with.

December: The Thin Season's High Point

Ruby-throated stays at zero. December is actually the single best month for Rufous in our entire dataset, even though "best" here still means a small trickle of reports rather than anything resembling a real wave. Genuine accidentals are possible too — West Virginia's own state records include documented sightings running into January, so a feeder left up through the cold isn't wasted effort.

The Year at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

When do hummingbirds come back to West Virginia?

Mid-April across most of the state; late April in Monongalia and Wood counties. Our data shows real, sustained arrivals don't begin until mid-to-late April even in the earliest regions — earlier feeder setup is a safety buffer, not a sign the birds are already here.

When do hummingbirds leave West Virginia?

Fast, and later than you might expect: the statewide peak actually lands in the first week of September, then reports drop more than two-thirds by the end of the month. Nearly all Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have left by early October.

How long do hummingbirds stay in West Virginia?

Roughly five and a half months for the typical West Virginia yard — arriving mid-April and mostly gone by early October. Add the fall-into-winter Rufous season, thin but genuine from October through December, and the practical "hummingbird watching" window stretches closer to nine months.

Why is my feeder in Morgantown still empty in late April?

Because Monongalia County is genuinely among the last parts of the state to see activity, along with Wood County in the Ohio Valley. Our data shows both counties running about a week behind Kanawha, Berkeley, and Greenbrier.

Should I keep a feeder up through a West Virginia winter?

If you want a shot at Rufous, yes — October through December is the window, though the numbers are genuinely thin here compared to some neighboring states. Genuine winter rarities are vanishingly unlikely in any given year, but West Virginia has real documented exceptions, including a Green Violet-eared Hummingbird that made state history at a Terra Alta feeder.

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 treats a state like West Virginia as roughly interchangeable with its neighbors, but the actual data shows something distinctive: an unusually late, unusually sharp September peak that doesn't match a simple "Mid-Atlantic timing" assumption. We wanted a calendar that reflects what's actually happening here, not a copy-paste from a nearby state's numbers.

How We Built This Calendar

We pulled eBird bar chart data for West Virginia statewide and for five counties — Kanawha, Berkeley, Monongalia, Greenbrier, and Wood — chosen for geographic spread across the state's real climate range, covering 2016 through 2025, and read the seasonal shape and regional pattern directly off the reporting rates ourselves.

Two definitions drive every number on this page: "first arrivals" is the first week a region's reporting rate clearly rises above its winter baseline and keeps climbing, and "reliably common" is the first week that region's reports hit 25% of that region's own seasonal peak — not a statewide peak, since a rural mountain county and a metro county don't share a baseline.

We also didn't pretend every county's data was equally solid. Greenbrier's checklist volume runs as low as 15 reports in some weeks, well below the other four counties, so we flagged that explicitly rather than presenting its numbers with the same confidence as Kanawha's roughly 300 reports per week. Kanawha's own unusually high peak (nearly 59%, well above the statewide 35%) may partly reflect concentrated local reporting activity rather than a genuinely different bird population, and we've noted that rather than let a single county's outlier number stand in for the state.

Before charting Rufous, we checked its shape across the year the same way we do everywhere: a bird reported steadily across many weeks reflects a genuine pattern, while an isolated spike sitting exactly at eBird's reporting floor is noise, not signal — several data points that would have looked like real activity were excluded from the winter chart above for exactly this reason. We didn't build a third, species-normalized timing chart on top of the two above, either: that chart exists specifically to rescue a rare species being visually flattened on a shared-scale chart, and our two-chart split already solves that problem directly.

The genuine finding worth calling out: West Virginia's September peak is both later and sharper than what we've measured in several neighboring states, and that's original analysis from our own county-level data, not a rewrite of eBird's own bar charts.