Ruby-throated Hummingbird

How to find it

Look in open, scrubby places rather than inside forest. In Guanacaste, birds were found singly along roadsides, fence rows and open trails, and in groups at Pochote trees. Flowers are the best clue, so watch red tubular blossoms, aloe, jocote and flowering porterweed.

Scan exposed branches, where males guard their patch, and listen for the buzzing wings and small high chips. Early morning can help: one male fed at a flowering bush at first light and was among the first hummingbirds to appear. In a mixed garden in the Heredia highlands it shared the space with Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Green-breasted Mango and Canivet's Emerald.

How to recognise it

The adult male is about 8 cm long.

Look for these marks on the male:

- a bronze-green back

- a ruby-red throat with a white collar below it

- a deeply forked tail

- black bill and legs

- greyish white underparts and almost black wings

The red throat can look black when the light angle changes, so turn with the bird before you decide.

The female has a white throat and a rounded tail with white tips on the outer feathers. Young birds look like females, though young males may show a few red throat feathers.

What it sounds like

Recording: Evan Raskin, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

Males are very territorial and chase intruders from their feeding area, so dramatic aerial chases are possible. They often sit on an exposed twig, watching over their patch. Listen for a buzzing wing sound and small high chip calls.

In Costa Rica it is usually subordinate to most local hummingbird species. Hovering wingbeats are about 55 per second.

It mainly drinks nectar, preferring red tubular flowers, and also eats insects and sometimes tree sap from woodpecker holes.

Where it lives

On its Costa Rican wintering grounds it favours secondary forest, scrub, hedges and forest edges. It sometimes uses gallery forest, coffee plantations and green areas in rural zones, and is less often found inside deciduous or evergreen forest.

It winters across much of the country, including both coasts, the Central Valley and the Central Volcanic Range. In northwest Guanacaste banders found it from 100 m to 750 m elevation, especially near nectar plants. One male was recorded in a garden at San Pablo de Heredia, at about 1,200 m, on 4 November 2021.

When to see it

It winters in Costa Rica from October to April. Rare strays on the Caribbean side come mostly during fall passage from mid-October to November, and it leaves in spring between late March and mid-April.

Similar birds

It is whiter underneath than the other small hummingbirds in its range. In poor light the male can recall a male Black-chinned Hummingbird, but its throat is red, not purple. Black-chinned is a North American species, so that comparison matters mainly on the northern breeding grounds and is not a Costa Rica lookalike.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans call this bird Colibrí Garganta de Rubí. Spanish sources also list colibrí gorgirrubí and zumbadorcito gorjirrojo for the species across its range. People often call hummingbirds in general "gorriones" or "gurriones", and one Costa Rican bird list gives "gorrión" as a common name for this species.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a migrant (M), and the IUCN rates the species Least Concern, with Breeding Bird Survey data showing a steady increase from 1966 to 2019.

Photography tips

Birds at Pochote trees in Guanacaste gathered in groups, with 12 to 13 feeding in a single tree at once on one day. They appeared to wander between food sources rather than stay at one site, so be ready to move on. Strong winds in the mid-winter dry season made netting hard there, and researchers suggested late November or late February as better times for fieldwork.