Most people take their hummingbird feeder down when the birds stop showing up — which means, without realizing it, they're tracking a migration that's already well underway. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds start leaving the northern states in late August — and the western species, Rufous and Calliope and the rest, run on a similar schedule — more than two months before the last stragglers clear the Gulf Coast. Here's the typical departure window, state by state.
The pattern, north to south
| Typical departure | # of states | Example states |
|---|---|---|
| Late August into September | 4 | Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Washington |
| September | 12 | Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire +6 more |
| Mid-to-late September | 12 | Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland +6 more |
| Early October | 8 | California, Washington, D.C., Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada +2 more |
| Mid-October | 7 | Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina +1 more |
| Late October | 4 | Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas |
| Into November | 2 | Florida, Louisiana |
The order runs almost exactly opposite to spring arrival: the states hummingbirds reach last in spring are the same states they leave first in fall, since the same shortening days and cooling nights that delayed their arrival now start pushing them back out early. States near the northern border are typically clear of breeding hummingbirds by the time most of the country is only beginning to think about fall.
Why the feeder question isn't as simple as "they left"
A quiet feeder in late August in Minnesota doesn't necessarily mean every hummingbird for miles is gone — it usually means the local breeders have started south, while migrants from farther north are still passing through behind them. That's exactly why the standard advice is to leave feeders up for a couple of weeks after your own last sighting, not to pull them at the first quiet day: a feeder taken down too early can miss the later wave of migrants using it to refuel on the way through, especially in northern and Great Lakes states where the passage window is real but brief.
This is the reverse of the question answered on when hummingbirds arrive in each state — read together, the two give the full picture of a hummingbird year for wherever you live. States farther south, like Texas and Florida, see the latest departures of all, since they're both a breeding range for some birds and a transit corridor for hummingbirds passing through from farther north.
The edges, honestly
This is a modeled window built from documented migration biology, not a measured date for any specific bird, state, or year — actual departure timing varies with weather, food availability, and simple individual variation, and a handful of birds always linger past the typical window (rare but real vagrant Rufous Hummingbirds, for one, sometimes show up well outside their usual range and season in fall). Treat every state's window as a typical range worth planning a feeder schedule around, not a hard closing date — and when in doubt, err toward leaving the feeder up a week or two longer than you think you need to.