If you live anywhere in the eastern half of North America and a hummingbird visits your garden, this is almost certainly the bird. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only hummingbird species that breeds east of the Mississippi River, which makes it both the easiest hummingbird in America to identify and the one most people mean when they say “hummingbird.” It is also, in terms of area, the species with the largest breeding range on the continent.

Here is how to recognize it, where and when to expect it, and what it does with its remarkable year.

Quick Facts

• Scientific name: Archilochus colubris
• Length: about 3.75 inches
• Weight: roughly 3 grams, less than a U.S. nickel
• Range: breeds across eastern North America from the Gulf Coast to southern Canada; winters in Mexico and Central America
• Longevity record: a female of at least 9 years and 2 months, recaptured in West Virginia in 2014
• Conservation status: common and widespread, with populations increasing since 1966

How to Identify a Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The male is the easy one. He has a brilliant iridescent ruby-red throat patch, the gorget that gives the species its name, set against a metallic emerald-green back and crown with white underparts. His face and chin are black, and his tail is dark and distinctly forked.

The catch, and it trips up a lot of people, is that the ruby throat looks flat black in most lighting. The colour comes from iridescence rather than pigment, so it only ignites when the light strikes at the right angle and the bird turns his head. A “black-throated” hummingbird at your feeder in the East is simply a male ruby-throat facing the wrong way. The physics behind that colour-shifting shimmer is covered in the article on why hummingbirds are so colourful.

The female has no red at all. She shows a plain grayish-white throat, golden-green upperparts, and whitish underparts, with a more rounded tail tipped in white on the outer feathers. She is also slightly larger than the male.

Juveniles look much like females, though young males often show faint speckling or scattered dark flecks on the throat, the first hints of the gorget coming in. A male whose gorget is only partly grown is likely under a year old.

Similar Species

Across most of its range, identification is refreshingly simple: no other hummingbird occurs regularly, so range alone does the work. There is some overlap in the Southeast and Texas, and a few points of confusion worth knowing:

• Black-chinned Hummingbird is the western counterpart and the main lookalike where ranges brush against each other, roughly along the 100th meridian. Ruby-throats breed east of that line and stop almost abruptly along it.
• Broad-billed Hummingbird males have a rosier throat and a red bill, unlike the ruby-throat’s scarlet gorget and dark bill.
• Female Selasphorus hummingbirds, such as Rufous and Allen’s, show rufous coloring on the flanks and tail. Female ruby-throats have none.

For the wider picture of who is who, see the article on North American hummingbird species.

Range and Habitat

Ruby-throats breed from the Gulf of Mexico north to southern Canada, and from the Atlantic coast west to roughly the 100th meridian, a surprisingly straight north-south line that splits states like Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma down the middle. West of it, the Black-chinned takes over.

In summer they favor semi-open country: woodland edges and clearings, meadows, gardens, city parks, and suburban backyards. They adapt readily to people and can become quite bold, feeding at porch hanging baskets and window-side feeders. In winter they occupy open or dry tropical scrub in southern Mexico and Central America, rather than deep rainforest.

Migration: The Gulf Crossing

For a three-gram bird, the ruby-throat’s annual journey borders on the implausible. Many individuals cross the Gulf of Mexico in a single nonstop flight of roughly 500 miles, staying airborne for 18 to 22 hours over open water with nowhere to land or feed. To prepare, they nearly double their body weight in fat beforehand. Research on the Alabama coast suggests that under still air, well-fueled birds may carry enough reserves to fly considerably farther than the crossing itself requires. Across a full season, a ruby-throat may travel up to 3,000 miles.

The risk is real. Fall migration coincides with hurricane season, and strong headwinds can drain a bird’s fat faster than it can be replaced. Birds that reach the Yucatán often arrive exhausted and feed heavily for days before continuing. Some individuals skip the crossing altogether and follow the Texas coast overland instead.

Timing runs in waves. Males migrate first in both directions, arriving in spring ahead of the females and departing as early as August; females follow roughly two weeks behind. First arrivals reach the Gulf Coast as early as late February, the Midwest by mid-April, and the northern limit of the range by May. The full story of how hummingbirds accomplish these journeys is covered in the migration article.

Behavior and Breeding

Ruby-throats are aggressively territorial around food, and the aerial dogfights at a busy feeder are a familiar summer sight. A single dominant bird will often try to guard an entire feeder against all comers, which is exactly why spacing several feeders apart works better than hanging one.

Courtship is a performance. The male flies a wide U-shaped pendulum arc in front of the perched female, whirring on each dive, then buzzes back and forth in short passes. What follows is brief: pairs stay together only days or weeks, and the male provides no help whatsoever afterward.

The female does everything. She builds a compact cup nest of plant down and fibers bound with spider silk and camouflaged outside with lichen, typically 10 to 20 feet up on a horizontal or downward-sloping branch under leafy cover. She usually lays two eggs the size of small jellybeans, incubates for about two weeks, and feeds the nestlings, mostly on insects, for another 18 to 22 days until they fledge. She may raise more than one brood in a season. The article on hummingbird breeding and nests covers the whole process.

Attracting Ruby-throated Hummingbirds

They are among the easiest hummingbirds to draw in, since they take readily to gardens and feeders.

Plant tubular, nectar-rich flowers, ideally natives such as cardinal flower, bee balm, trumpet creeper, coral honeysuckle, and salvia. Ruby-throats are important pollinators of several of these. Because they also need insects for protein, skip broad-spectrum pesticides. And put a feeder out about a week or two before they are due in your area, since early arrivals check familiar spots immediately.

Detailed articles cover how to attract hummingbirds to your garden, the nectar recipe and feeder care, and when to put feeders out and take them down.

• Designing a Garden They’ll Return To.
• Hummingbird nectar recipe.
• When to put out and take down hummingbird feeders.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the only hummingbird in the eastern United States? The Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It is the sole hummingbird species that breeds east of the Mississippi River, so an eastern hummingbird is almost always this one.

Why does the male’s red throat look black? Because the color is iridescent rather than pigmented. It only flares into red when light hits at the right angle, so a male facing away appears black-throated.

How do I tell a male from a female ruby-throat? Males have the ruby gorget, a black chin, and a forked dark tail. Females have a plain grayish-white throat, a rounded tail with white outer tips, and are slightly larger.

How far do Ruby-throated Hummingbirds migrate? Up to about 3,000 miles in a season, including a nonstop Gulf of Mexico crossing of roughly 500 miles taking 18 to 22 hours.

Do male ruby-throats help raise the young? No. The pair is together only briefly, and the female alone builds the nest, incubates the eggs, and feeds the chicks.

When do Ruby-throated Hummingbirds arrive in spring? As early as late February on the Gulf Coast, mid-April through the Midwest, and into May at the northern edge of the range. Males arrive before females.

Conclusion

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird manages a rare trick: it is both the most common hummingbird in eastern North America and one of the most extraordinary athletes in the animal world. The bird guarding your feeder this afternoon may have crossed 500 miles of open water without stopping to get there, and will do it again in a few months’ time. Put out a clean feeder and a few tubular flowers, and that whole improbable journey ends, briefly, in your garden.