Ruby-throated hummingbirds August 2019, Alberta (photo by dfaulder via Flickr Creative Commons license)

14 September 2026

Ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) are heading south now to their winter homes in Central America. This week they are still abundant in Pittsburgh but their numbers will wane rapidly. They’ll be gone by the end of the September.

Eventually they reach the Gulf coast and pause to fuel up for the next leg of their journey. They swarm these feeders in Mississippi (filmed 4 Sep 2026).

And they visit this hummingbird hotspot in Covington, Louisiana, home of Margaret “Birdie” Owens. (video from spring 2026)

Ruby-throats are known for flying 20 hours non-stop over the Gulf of Mexico in spring, but it appears most of them take the overland route in the fall. I reached this conclusion by watching the week-by-week abundance animation from eBird Status and Trends. Notice their abundance in spring and fall at 3 places: the Yucatan Peninsula, Louisiana, and Central Mexico. None travel through Central Mexico in the spring (because they fly over the Gulf), but they do in autumn.

Many of them winter on the west side of the continental divide in Central America.