How long do hummingbirds live? Banding records for 11 species, and what we know in the Andes

How long do hummingbirds live? For the better-known North American species, probably 3 to 5 years, says Wikipedia. The oldest wild bird on record, a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird, was at least 12 years old. Here are the banding records, what kills hummingbirds, and how little is known about Andean species.

How long do hummingbirds live on average?

Most live a few years, and many don't survive their first. Among the better-known North American species, the typical lifespan is probably 3 to 5 years. For the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Wikipedia gives an average of 3 to 5 years, with most deaths among yearlings.

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) puts it plainly: most hummingbirds don't make it through their first year. Adults face steep odds too. ABC reports that only about 31% of adult male Ruby-throats and 42% of adult females survive any given year.

That is still a long life for an animal this small. Wikipedia calls it unusually long for a creature with such a rapid metabolism. By comparison, shrews, among the smallest mammals, seldom live longer than 2 years.

How long do hummingbirds live at most?

At least 12 years, going by the record. It belongs to a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird. She was banded as an adult in Colorado in 1976, so she was already at least one year old. Researchers caught her again in 1987, 11 years later.

How long do hummingbirds live, species by species? This table lists the age records that ABC published in 2022 for 11 North American species. Each figure is a minimum age from a banded bird caught again later.

Sources differ slightly as new recaptures come in. Wikipedia gives 9 years and 2 months for a banded Ruby-throat, at least 11 years and 2 months for a Buff-bellied, and 10 years and 1 month for a Black-chinned. One tropical figure stands out too: Wikipedia says the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba lives 7 to 10 years.

How do scientists know a hummingbird's age?

They put a tiny numbered band on its leg and wait for someone to catch it again. The time between the two captures, plus the bird's age when first banded, gives a minimum age.

In North America this work goes back a century. The US Geological Survey says about one million hummingbirds have been banded there since 1923. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds make up nearly half of those records. That huge sample is why North American species have age records and most tropical ones don't.

What limits a hummingbird's life?

Hummingbirds rarely die of old age. ABC says cold weather claims the lives of many. These are the main threats named by ABC and Wikipedia:

1. Cold and hunger. A hummingbird burns energy so fast that a cold snap or a gap in flowers can be fatal.
2. The first year. Young birds face the steepest odds of all.
3. Domestic cats. Where present, they are a common predator of hummingbirds.
4. Natural predators. Praying mantises, dragonflies, frogs, orb-weaver spiders, snakes and birds of prey such as kestrels and sharp-shinned hawks.
5. Windows and vehicles. ABC lists collisions with both.
6. Pesticides and habitat loss. Both cut the flowers and insects that hummingbirds depend on.

Energy is the thread running through most of this list. To survive the night, hummingbirds can drop into torpor. Their metabolism slows to about 1/15 of normal, according to Wikipedia. We explain it in where hummingbirds sleep and how torpor works.

How long do hummingbirds live in the Andes?

The honest answer is that we don't know, and neither does anyone else for most Andean species. We found no published age record for the Collared Inca or the other hummingbirds of our valley.

The gap is real. In one long-term banding study in the Andean forests of Manu, Peru, between 1,400 and 2,900 m, the team did not band hummingbirds. They lacked bands of a suitable size. That study still found that many tropical landbirds are site-faithful and long-lived, with ages up to 10 years and 6 months.

So treat any confident lifespan for an Andean hummingbird with care. Without banding data, a number is a guess.

How to help hummingbirds live longer

You can't add years to a hummingbird's life, but you can remove some of the dangers. These are the steps the sources above point to:

• Plant native flowers. They give nectar plus the insects hummingbirds need for protein. See the Andean plants we grow.
• Keep feeders clean and simple. Use 1 part white sugar to 4 parts water, as Audubon recommends. No honey, no dye.
• Skip pesticides. They remove the insects that chicks are fed on.
• Keep cats indoors and make large windows easier for birds to see.

At San Pedrito we plan to do exactly this: native flowers first, clean feeders second. Our recipe is in what hummingbirds eat.

So, how long do hummingbirds live?

A few years for most, and a dozen for the luckiest. The typical figure for well-studied species is 3 to 5 years, and the record is at least 12. For Andean species like those in our valley, the real answer is still unknown. Banding programs in the tropics may one day fill that gap.

Keep reading: meet the hummingbirds of Ecuador's eastern Andes, see the Collared Inca we photographed at the farm, learn where hummingbirds sleep on cold nights, or read about male vs female hummingbirds.

Sources

• "Hummingbird", Wikipedia (typical lifespan, longevity records, Bee Hummingbird, predators, torpor).
• American Bird Conservancy, Hummingbirds lead intense lives: how long do they live? (25 Oct 2022; age records for 11 species, survival rates, threats).
• US Geological Survey, What 100 years of USGS bird monitoring data tell us about hummingbirds (28 Feb 2025; about one million hummingbirds banded).
• Scholer, Merkord, Londoño and Jankowski (2018), Minimum longevity estimates for some Neotropical landbirds of southeastern Peru, The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 130(3): 818–823.
• Audubon, How to make hummingbird nectar (1:4 recipe).