Pound for pound, the Rufous Hummingbird is the greatest traveler in the bird world. A bird weighing about as much as a penny flies from Mexico to Alaska and back, up to 8,000 miles in a year, along a route shaped like a giant loop across western North America. It breeds farther north than any hummingbird on Earth. And when it arrives at your feeder, it will fight everything that comes near it, regardless of size.

It is also a species in trouble, which makes knowing it worthwhile in a way that goes beyond a name on a list.

Quick Facts

• Scientific name: Selasphorus rufus
• Length: about 3.75 inches, with a 4.5-inch wingspan
• Range: breeds from Oregon and Idaho north through British Columbia into southeast Alaska; winters in Mexico
• Migration: up to about 4,000 miles each way, one of the longest journeys relative to body size of any bird
• Conservation status: Near Threatened, and declining

How to Identify a Rufous Hummingbird

The male is the most orange hummingbird in North America. His back and belly are bright coppery rufous, and his throat is a vivid iridescent scarlet-orange, usually set off by a white chest patch below. In poor light the gorget goes dark, as all iridescent gorgets do.

Structurally, look for a small hummingbird with a nearly straight bill, a tail that tapers to a point when folded, and fairly short wings that fall well short of the tail tip when the bird is perched.

The female and immature birds are greenish above and whitish below, with rusty-washed flanks, rusty patches at the base of a green tail, and often a small spot or patch of orange on the throat. That rufous wash on the flanks is the key: it rules out Anna’s and Ruby-throated immediately, since neither shows any orange tones at all.

The Allen’s Problem

This is one of the genuinely difficult identification challenges in North American birding, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a confident one.

For adult males, the back is the shortcut. A male with a solidly rufous or coppery back is a Rufous. A male showing substantial green across the back is likely an Allen’s. The rule of thumb birders use: if the back is less than half green, you can safely call it a Rufous without seeing the tail.

The complication is that some adult male Rufous Hummingbirds do show green on the back. Once green creeps past the middle of the back, confidence collapses, and separating the two requires careful inspection of the shape of the spread outer tail feathers, with Allen’s being noticeably narrower and more pointed.

For females and immatures, be honest with yourself. They are very nearly identical, and reliable separation usually requires seeing the spread tail well, something most garden observations simply do not allow. Range helps: Allen’s is restricted to coastal California and southern Oregon in the breeding season, so away from that narrow strip, a Selasphorus hummingbird is far more likely to be a Rufous.

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

The Great Migratory Loop

The Rufous Hummingbird’s annual journey is the reason to care about this species even if you never see one.

Birds winter in Mexico and begin moving north as early as January, riding the wave of early blooms up the Pacific Coast. They pass through California between February and April, reach coastal Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia by late April and May, and push on to southeast Alaska, which is the northernmost hummingbird breeding range anywhere in the world.

Then, remarkably, they do not retrace their steps. The return journey swings inland and south through the Rocky Mountains, where they follow the late-summer wildflower bloom through mountain meadows at elevations as high as 12,600 feet. The whole pattern forms a vast clockwise loop around western North America, timed to catch flowers at their peak in each region.

Some individuals cover roughly 3,900 miles in a single direction, from Mexico to Alaska, which means as much as 8,000 miles in a year for a bird under four inches long. The mechanics of how hummingbirds achieve journeys like this are covered in our migration article.

Rufous are also notable wanderers. They have more vagrant tendencies than any other North American hummingbird, and Project FeederWatch has recorded them across 40 states and provinces, with strays regularly turning up east of the Rockies each fall to the delight of birders.

Behavior: The Feistiest Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbirds are famously, relentlessly aggressive. A single bird will attempt to monopolize a feeder and chase off every other hummingbird that approaches, including species considerably larger than itself. On migration they will muscle into established territories and simply take over.

This has a practical consequence in the garden. If a Rufous shows up and your other hummingbirds vanish, you have not lost them; they have been evicted. The remedy is to put out several feeders spaced well apart, ideally out of sight of one another so that no single bird can guard them all. The nectar recipe and feeder article covers feeder placement in detail. For more on hummingbird aggression and the sounds that go with it, see the article on hummingbird sounds and territorial behaviour.

Habitat and Breeding

Rufous breed in open areas, forest edges, yards, parks, and woodland up to the treeline, favoring the cool, damp Pacific Northwest. Their winter habitat in Mexico is quite different: shrubby openings and oak-pine forest at middle to high elevation.

As with all hummingbirds, the female alone builds the nest, incubates, and raises the young. Our article on hummingbird breeding and nests covers the process.

A Species in Decline

This is the part that matters. Rufous Hummingbird populations have fallen substantially since the 1970s, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature now classifies the species as Near Threatened. It is also on the U.S. list of Birds of Conservation Concern.

The causes are the familiar ones: loss of breeding habitat, concentrated precisely in the Pacific Northwest where the species is most abundant, along with climate change disrupting the fine timing between the birds’ arrival and the flowering they depend on. A bird whose entire strategy is to chase blooms across a continent is unusually exposed when those blooms shift.

The good news is that the things which help are ordinary and local: native nectar plants, clean feeders, no pesticides, and protected habitat. Our article on threats to hummingbirds and how you can help covers what makes a difference.

Attracting Rufous Hummingbirds

If you live along their migratory route, the key is timing. Rufous arrive early, often before much is in bloom, so have a clean feeder out ahead of them. In the Pacific Northwest, red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) is the standout native, because its bloom is timed almost exactly to the Rufous arrival, and salmonberry does a similar early-season job.

Then space your feeders apart, because one Rufous will otherwise guard the lot. Our articles on attracting hummingbirds and when to put feeders out cover both points.

• How to Attract Hummingbirds: Designing a Garden They’ll Return To.
• When to Put Out and Take Down Hummingbird Feeders.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I identify a Rufous Hummingbird? Males are bright coppery orange on the back and belly with a vivid scarlet-orange throat. Females and immatures are green above with rusty flanks, rusty tail patches, and often an orange throat spot.

How do I tell a Rufous from an Allen’s Hummingbird? For adult males, a solidly rufous back means Rufous, while substantial green on the back suggests Allen’s. Females and immatures are nearly identical and often cannot be separated without a clear view of the spread tail.

How far does a Rufous Hummingbird migrate? Up to about 4,000 miles each way, as much as 8,000 miles annually, in a clockwise loop north along the Pacific Coast and south through the Rockies.

Which hummingbird breeds the farthest north? The Rufous. It breeds into southeast Alaska, the northernmost hummingbird breeding range in the world.

Why did all my hummingbirds disappear when a Rufous arrived? They were driven off. Rufous are exceptionally aggressive and will monopolize a feeder. Space several feeders apart, out of sight of each other, so one bird cannot guard them all.

Are Rufous Hummingbirds endangered? Not endangered, but listed as Near Threatened, with populations declining since the 1970s due to breeding habitat loss and climate-driven disruption of flower timing.

Conclusion

There is something almost absurd about the Rufous Hummingbird: less than four inches of bird, weighing about as much as a penny, making an annual circuit of a continent and picking fights with everything it meets along the way. That it now needs help is worth sitting with. The route it flies passes through a great many gardens, and what grows and hangs in those gardens is one of the few parts of its journey that ordinary people can improve.