What does a hummingbird symbolize?

The short answer

Hummingbirds are most often read as symbols of joy, lightness and resilience: a tiny bird that hovers, darts and crosses huge distances. The deepest roots of that symbolism are in Mesoamerica, where the hummingbird was tied to war, the sun and the souls of warriors.

The hummingbird and the Aztec sun

The patron god of the Mexica (Aztec) people was Huitzilopochtli, whose name is usually translated as "hummingbird of the south" or "hummingbird on the left". He was the god of the sun and of war. In Mexica belief, warriors who died in battle accompanied the sun across the sky and returned to earth after four years as hummingbirds or butterflies, feeding on flowers.

Hummingbirds are fiercely territorial, and anyone who has watched two males at a feeder will understand why a warrior culture chose them. Their feathers were also prized for featherwork, a high art in Mexico.

Hummingbirds elsewhere in the Americas

One of the best known of the Nazca Lines in southern Peru, made around 2,000 years ago, is a hummingbird nearly 100 meters long. Trinidad and Tobago calls itself the "land of the hummingbird", and hummingbirds appear on its coat of arms. Stories from many peoples of the Caribbean and South America give the hummingbird roles as a messenger or as the bird that brings fire or tobacco; these differ from one people to the next.

Why hummingbirds feel like a sign

A hummingbird often appears suddenly, hovers in front of a person's face for a second, then vanishes. That close-up inspection is real: hummingbirds investigate anything bright, especially red, as a possible flower. Bright clothing or a red hat will get you looked at. Like cardinals, hummingbirds are often taken as a visit from a loved one, and the timing of their arrival in spring or their last visit in fall can make them feel tied to anniversaries.

The facts behind the symbol

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards and hover for long periods. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird's heart can beat more than 1,200 times a minute in flight. At night they can drop into torpor, a deep sleep-like state where body temperature and heart rate fall sharply to save energy; a hummingbird in torpor can look dead and take several minutes to wake.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds weigh about 3 grams, roughly the weight of a penny, and many of them fly nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico on migration, a crossing of around 500 miles. The resilience in hummingbird symbolism is no exaggeration.

Inviting hummingbirds

If you want to see more of them, plant native tubular flowers such as bee balm, cardinal flower and trumpet honeysuckle, and hang a feeder with one part white sugar to four parts water, no dye. Change the nectar every two to three days in hot weather.

Put the feeder near flowers rather than in the open, and if two males fight over it, hang a second feeder out of sight of the first. Hummingbirds also need tiny insects for protein, especially when feeding young, so a garden that skips pesticides gives them both halves of their diet. A shallow mister or dripper is another draw; hummingbirds bathe by flying through fine spray.

Where hummingbirds go in winter

Most hummingbirds in the US and Canada leave in fall. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, the only species that nests regularly in the East, winter from southern Mexico to Panama. Rufous Hummingbirds make one of the longest migrations of any bird for its size, travelling as much as 3,900 miles one way between Alaska and Mexico. Anna's Hummingbirds are the exception: they stay year-round along the Pacific coast, even through frosty nights, and have spread north into British Columbia.

Leaving a feeder up in fall doesn't stop hummingbirds from migrating. Day length triggers their departure, and a feeder simply helps late travellers refuel. In the Southeast, a hummingbird at a feeder in winter is often a rare western species such as a Rufous Hummingbird, which bird banders are keen to hear about.