When Should You Put Your Hummingbird Feeder Out for the Season in Michigan?

Sooner or later, it's going to actually feel like spring outside in Michigan. Once it does, the birds and bugs will return to your garden area in full force. Of course, one welcome visitor is always the hummingbird buzzing in to take a few sips from the hummingbird feeder.

Growing up in the South, I feel like my mom always had her hummingbird feeders out. I'm not sure if that's the best practice, but she refilled the feeders every year and every year two or three hummingbirds would always hang out around the front porch.

Watching hummingbirds is fun, in its own way. I always like to take a picture of them if I can to see if my camera shutter can capture their wings clearly.

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Naturally, they haven't been around in Michigan for a while. Hummingbirds spend the winter months in Central America or Mexico, far from the cold of the Midwest. But with the seasons soon to change, when can we expect to see these quick little birds reappear in the Mitten State?

So far, the hummingbird population that will migrate as far north as Michigan is in the Southeast. The Ruby Throated Hummingbird is easily the most common in the state, but the furthest north one has been spotted this season (as of March 21) is outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A map that tracks the migration of hummingbirds can be found at Hummingbird Central.

(Another breed, the Rufous Hummingbird, was spotted outside Vancouver, but they don't come this far east.)

According to Wild Bird Scoop, hummingbirds typically arrive in Michigan in late April. But that doesn't necessarily mean you need to put your feeder out now.

What you can do is get your feeder out of storage and clean and prepare it for the birds. When you fill it with nectar, Hummingbird Society recommends one cup of white cane sugar and four cups of spring water, nothing more and nothing less. Their website has even more tips on managing your feeder.