The hummingbird spiritual meaning most people know is joy, lightness and a sign that someone you love is close to you. Its oldest recorded root is Aztec, where warriors who died in battle were believed to come back to earth as hummingbirds.
The bird also goes cold and still on chilly nights, then wakes within minutes once it warms up. That is why early writers called it the resurrection bird. So if a visit feels like it is meant for you, take it that way, and know that it may also be telling you your feeder is empty.
Quick pick
What Did the Hummingbird Do?
Find your moment below and jump straight to what it means.
- Hovering right in front of your face? Often read as being seen; he may be showing off too
- Coming to your window for days? A visitor knocking, or a mother collecting spider silk
- Showed up after someone died? Many take it as a loved one saying hello
- Flew into your house or garage? A surprise guest; here is how to guide it out
- Found one lying still? It may only be in torpor, so look again
- Saw one in the UK or Europe? It was most likely a hummingbird hawk-moth
Keep reading below What it symbolizes The resurrection bird Meanings in different cultures Welcome them safely Questions
Hummingbirds are one part of our guide to bird meanings. If you are new to reading signs, our page on signs from the universe shows you how to read any of them in a few simple steps.
What Does a Hummingbird Symbolize?
Most of what people say a hummingbird means comes straight from what the bird really does, and you can see it in your own yard. That is what we love about it.
- Joy and sweetness. A hummingbird lives on nectar and small bugs, and it can visit 1,000 to 2,000 flowers in a single day. Many people take it as a reminder to notice the sweet parts of your own day.
- Being present. It can hover, fly backward and even fly upside down. You may read it as a nudge to stop rushing and be where you are.
- Strength in a small body. Hummingbird hearts have been recorded at up to 1,260 beats a minute, and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird can fly up to 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico. Many people read it as proof that you do not have to be big to be strong.
- Love. Cherokee stories and Mexican folk belief both tie the hummingbird to love, and you will find both further down.
- Coming back to life. On cold nights it drops into a deep rest called torpor, and then it wakes up again. This is where the resurrection meaning comes from.
You do not have to pick just one.
The meaning that fits is usually the one that answers whatever was on your mind when the bird showed up.
What Does It Mean When a Hummingbird Visits You?
When a hummingbird visits you, many people take it as a small blessing. It can be a message for you to lighten up, to enjoy something sweet, or to know that a loved one is near you.
What the bird did, and what was on your mind at that moment, shape the meaning more than anything else.
Seeing one in summer is not rare, though. Cornell Lab of Ornithology puts the Ruby-throated Hummingbird population at about 36 million, and their numbers have been rising since 1966. So the meaning does not come from how rare it is. It comes from when you saw it, and from how the moment felt to you.
○ When a Hummingbird Hovers in Front of You
A hummingbird hanging in the air right in front of your face is the moment people remember most. If this happens to you, it is often read as being seen.
The bird has paused its very busy day to look at you, and you are being asked to pause and look back.
There is a bird reason too, and it is a sweet one. People with feeders say on bird forums that their hummingbirds hover at eye level and chirp when the sugar water runs low or goes bad.
He may also be showing off. A male Anna’s Hummingbird starts his courtship dive by hovering two to four meters in front of another hummingbird or a person. If one climbs high, dives down at you and ends with a loud squeak, that is his display.
Both things can be true at once. The bird can want something, and the moment can still mean something to you.
○ When a Hummingbird Comes to Your Window
A hummingbird at your window is often read as a visitor knocking on your door. Someone, or something, wants your attention.
If you have lost someone, you may feel this one in your heart.
Does it keep coming back to the same spot for days? Check your feeder first, because empty, cloudy or moldy sugar water will bring a bird to the glass. Then look at the corners of your window frame and under the edge of your roof.
A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird builds her nest from soft plant down held together with spider silk. So a mother may be picking webs from those corners. Last, look for anything red or bright near your window. Hummingbirds learn that red usually means good nectar, so they come to check.
○ When You Keep Seeing Hummingbirds
If you keep seeing hummingbirds, especially during a hard time, it is usually read as encouragement. Many people take it as a sign to keep going, or to make a little room for joy even while things are difficult.
The birds may also simply know your yard. Rufous Hummingbirds have an excellent memory for places, and some have been seen coming back from migration to check the spot where a feeder hung the year before. That does not take the comfort away. It only means the bird has made you one of its regular stops.
○ When Your Hummingbird Leaves in the Fall
If “your” hummingbird disappears in late summer, it has not left you for good. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, the only hummingbird that breeds in eastern North America, head to Central America by early fall, and males may leave as early as August.
You can read the goodbye as a soft lesson in letting go, with a return for you to look forward to in spring.
Hummingbirds After a Death: Are They Messengers from Heaven?
Many people believe a hummingbird can be a loved one saying hello, and you are far from the first person to feel this.
The idea is old. Aztec tradition held that fallen warriors came back as hummingbirds (you will find that story below), and in Trinidad, Caribbean Beat magazine reports, a priest in the late 1800s heard that good souls came back as hummingbirds to visit their families. So it did not start on a greeting card.
You will find people sharing these moments everywhere today. A daughter sees the hummingbirds come back to her mother’s feeder the first summer after her mother died. Someone sees a hummingbird at their house for the first time a month after their dog died.
Pets count. Every kind of love counts.
If a hummingbird comforts you, let it. If one makes you feel worse (some people find it too sad to be a comfort), that is completely normal too.
Some people never get a sign at all, and that is all right. It says nothing about how much your person loved you, or about how well you are grieving. A sign is a comfort some people find, not a test you have to pass.
If the loss still feels raw after weeks or months, talking it through with a friend, a relative or a grief counselor can help you more than any bird.
Cardinals carry this meaning even more often than hummingbirds do, and you can read about them in our page on cardinals as signs from loved ones. If you have been finding feathers since you lost someone, read what a white feather means.
Why the Hummingbird Is Called the Resurrection Bird
This is our favorite part of the hummingbird story, because the old belief and the real bird fit together so well.
On cold nights, many hummingbirds go into torpor. Their breathing and heart rate slow down, and the body of an Anna’s Hummingbird can cool from about 107 degrees Fahrenheit to as low as 48. Torpor also cuts the energy the bird uses at rest by about ten times.
If you found a hummingbird like this, you would think it was dead. Then, once it is warm again, it can be up and flying in a few minutes.
You might be surprised by how long ago people noticed this. Caribbean Beat magazine tells how the Franciscan priest Bernardino de Sahagún heard the Aztec word for the hummingbird, “vitzitzili”, and wrote it down as “the reviving ones”. The birds were said to die when food and warmth ran short, and come back to life later.
Christian writers took the idea further. The Jesuit Juan Eusebio Nieremberg wrote that the bird “dies to live again” and compared it to the Resurrection of Christ. John Josselyn’s book New England Rarities called it the “Rising and Waking Bird”, an “Emblem of the Resurrection”.
So when someone tells you the hummingbird is a sign of new life, you can know that people have said this for hundreds of years. And on a cold night, the bird really does come back from something that looks a lot like death.
A Hummingbird in Your House or Garage
If a hummingbird flies into your house, it is usually read as a surprise guest with a message. It might be asking you to slow down, to let some lightness into your home, or to get ready for something new.
In bird groups, people like to joke that you are “extra blessed” that day, and we think that is a lovely way to see it.
Getting the bird outside comes first, though. A hummingbird burns energy so fast that it can starve after only a few hours of flying without food.
These are the calm steps bird lovers share, and they work most of the time:
- Open your biggest door or window wide, and close the doors to the rest of your home.
- Turn off the lights and cover the other windows if you can. The bird heads for light, so make the open door the brightest spot in the room.
- Hang a feeder, or something red, right at the opening.
- Step away and stay quiet. Most birds find the way out on their own.
- If it gets tired and lands, hold a soft push-broom up near it. Tired birds often perch on the bristles, and you can carry it outside slowly.
- Once it is out, keep a feeder close by so it can refuel.
Try not to chase it or swat at it with a towel, because a frightened little bird wears itself out much faster.
If it seems hurt, or still will not fly after a rest outside, call a local wildlife rehabilitator. Afterward, a screen on your door is the easiest way to stop it happening again.
What a Dead Hummingbird Means
Finding a dead hummingbird is sad, and many people read it as a chapter closing, not as a sign that someone will die. Look again, because a still bird on a cold morning may only be in torpor. If it really has died, move it with gloves and leave it outside or bury it, since in the US the law does not let you keep a native hummingbird. Our page on what a dead bird means covers the rest.
Hummingbird Dreams
We could not find an old tradition about hummingbird dreams, so these are the common modern meanings you will see, not old ones.
- A hummingbird landing on you is often read as good news on its way to you, or as joy that is closer than you think.
- A hummingbird dying in your hands is a hard dream to have, but most people read it as an ending that makes room for something new in your life, not as a warning.
- A white hummingbird is often read as peace, or as someone you lost being near you.
- Two hummingbirds together are often read as love or a close friend in your life.
Your best guide is how you felt when you woke up. If you woke up calm and happy, that tells you more than any list can.
Hummingbird Spiritual Meaning in Different Cultures
You will see a lot of pages say “Native Americans saw the hummingbird as a healer” and stop there, without the name of a single people or story.
We wanted to know who said what, and where it is written down, so these are only the traditions we could trace to a real record.
○ Aztec: Huitzilopochtli and the Warrior Souls
For the Nahua people of central Mexico, the hummingbird was one of the most sacred animals, because it stood for their god Huitzilopochtli.
Britannica calls him the god of the sun and of war. In Aztec art, you will see him as a hummingbird, or as a warrior with a helmet made of hummingbird feathers. Tradition says his mother, Coatlicue, became pregnant with him after she kept a ball of hummingbird feathers close to her chest.
His name is usually translated with the words “hummingbird” and “left” (and to the Aztecs, left meant south). Britannica gives one reading, but the Online Nahuatl Dictionary says scholars still do not agree on how it should be read.
The Dumbarton Oaks museum explains where the after-death belief comes from. People who died ordinary deaths faced a hard four-year journey to Mictlan, the place of the dead. But warriors who died in battle or as sacrifices went with the sun, and after four years they came back as hummingbirds or butterflies to drink nectar from flowers.
You may read online that women who died giving birth came back as hummingbirds too. Dumbarton Oaks says these women were honored in the same way, but they did not become hummingbirds. Butterflies carry a similar meaning of souls coming back, and you can read about that in our page on the white butterfly. Our page on butterfly spiritual meaning tells the butterfly half of that Aztec story.
○ The Caribbean: Taino Guani and Trinidad’s Ancestors
You may not know the Taino word for the tiny bee hummingbird.
It was Guani, the same word the Taino used for a noble person, and the root of guanin, which archaeologists Bill Keegan and Betsy Carlson call the Taino’s highest symbol of authority.
Bill Keegan and Betsy Carlson also say the bird’s curved body and bright colors “may” have tied it to the rainbow, which for the Taino was a bridge between the land, the sky and the world under the ground.
In Trinidad, the historian E. L. Joseph wrote in 1838 about the Chaima people. The story says they killed many hummingbirds at La Brea, not knowing the birds were their own ancestors come back to life.
The Good Spirit was angry, so the earth swallowed the village, and that is how the island’s Pitch Lake was said to form.
If you want an old record of the dead coming back as hummingbirds, this is the clearest one we found.
○ Cherokee, Creek and Hopi Stories
In a Cherokee story written down by James Mooney in 1900, the other animals tell the Hummingbird he is far too small to bring back the stolen tobacco. He brings it back anyway, then blows its smoke into the nose of an old woman everyone thought was dead, and she opens her eyes.
Once again, the hummingbird brings someone back to life.
Another Cherokee story, “The Race Between the Crane and the Hummingbird”, is one you will like if you are asking about love. A woman likes the handsome Hummingbird more, but the slow Crane wins their race around the world because he can fly all night. In James Mooney’s telling, she will not marry him anyway, and she stays single.
James Mooney wrote that this ending may surprise anyone who thought women had no rights in Native society.
The Creek people tell a race like this one too. There, the crane wins by flying straight while the hummingbird follows every bend of a stream.
If you want a story about hope, the Hopi tale “The Magic Hummingbird” is set in the village of Oraibi during a long drought. Two children shape a sunflower stalk into a hummingbird, and it comes to life. In Ekkehart Malotki’s retelling, it brings them food, then flies down under the ground to ask Muy’ingwa, the god of fertility, to bring the rain back.
○ The Nasca Hummingbird in Peru
The famous “hummingbird” drawn into the desert at Nasca in southern Peru may not be the bird you picture.
In 2019, researchers from Hokkaido University and two other Japanese institutions said it is a hermit, a kind of hummingbird with a long, pointed tail that lives in forests far away from Nasca. Their study found that the Nasca drew faraway birds rather than local ones.
UNESCO says the lines are believed to have had ritual and astronomical uses, so you are looking at something that once meant a lot to the people who made it. Nobody knows why a hummingbird was drawn there, so be careful with any page that tells you exactly what it meant.
○ Hummingbirds and Love in Mexico
Audubon reports that in Mexico, hummingbirds have been linked with health and good luck since before the Spanish came. This led to a folk belief that they can bring love.
Sadly, the belief now feeds a trade in “chuparosas”, dried dead hummingbirds sold as love charms, and those charms are illegal in the US. Please never buy one. A Mexican hummingbird expert quoted by Audubon put it simply: these birds bring good luck “alive, not dead.”
Is the Hummingbird in the Bible?
No. If you search the King James Bible on Bible Gateway, you will not find the word “hummingbird” at all. That makes sense, because hummingbirds live only in the Americas, and the Bible was written long before anyone in Europe had seen one.
That does not stop many Christians from seeing a hummingbird as a small gift from God. If you believe God sends you little joys to remind you that you are loved, a hummingbird is an easy one to see. Christian writers have also tied the bird to the Resurrection for centuries, as you read above with Nieremberg.
Hummingbird Spirit Animal and Tattoo Meaning
The idea of the hummingbird as a “spirit animal” mostly comes from modern books, such as Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson and Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, rather than from the teaching of one tribe.
As the spiritual blog Shamanic Connection quotes them, the hummingbird opens your heart, brings the plain joy of being alive, and teaches you to fight in a way where no one gets hurt.
If you feel drawn to the hummingbird, people who work with spirit animals would say you bring joy to others and you move fast from one idea to the next. You may also need to look after your energy. A real hummingbird has to eat every 10 to 15 minutes, after all.
A hummingbird tattoo is often chosen in memory of someone who died, because the bird carries the idea of a soul that comes back, a meaning as old as the Aztec warriors. Other people choose it for joy and freedom.
If you are planning one, pick the meaning that is true for you. It is your skin and your story.
How to Welcome Hummingbirds Safely
If you would like more visits, a feeder is the easiest way to invite them. Just set it up in a way that keeps your birds safe.
- Follow Audubon’s recipe: stir 1/4 cup of plain white sugar into 1 cup of boiling water until it dissolves, let it cool, then fill the feeder.
- Leave out honey, which can grow a dangerous fungus, and leave out red food coloring too, since the birds do not need it and it could harm them.
- Change the water before it turns cloudy. In hot weather, sugar water ferments quickly into toxic alcohol.
- Hang the feeder away from windows and out of reach of cats, since some cats learn to lie in wait for hummingbirds. On rare occasions a mantis waits on a feeder too, and our praying mantis spiritual meaning page shows how to move it gently.
- Plant red or orange tubular flowers if you have the space. You may also meet the hummingbird moth, a furry yellow and black moth that hovers like a tiny bird at flowers during the day.
If you live in the East, keep the feeder up until your birds leave in early fall. Out West, Anna’s Hummingbirds do not migrate much, so your feeder may have visitors all year.
Then sit back and wait. The next time one hangs in the air beside you, you will know what it means to you and why it is really there. Happy hummingbird watching!
Frequently Asked Questions About Hummingbird Meaning
What does it mean when God sends a hummingbird?
Many Christians take a hummingbird as a small sign of God’s love, a reminder to slow down and notice the good in your day. The Bible itself never mentions hummingbirds (a King James search on Bible Gateway finds no results), because they live only in the Americas. But Christian writers have used the bird as a picture of the Resurrection at least since the Jesuit Juan Eusebio Nieremberg wrote that it “dies to live again”.
What is the hummingbird trying to tell me?
Most people read a hummingbird’s visit as a message to lighten up, enjoy something sweet, or know that a loved one is near. Think about what was on your mind when it came, because that usually decides the meaning. It may also be telling you something simple: people with feeders say hummingbirds hover close and chirp when the sugar water is empty or has gone bad.
Are hummingbirds a blessing?
Many people see them as one. In Mexico, hummingbirds have been linked with health and good luck since before the Spanish came, Audubon reports. The blessing is the living bird, though. As one Mexican hummingbird expert put it, quoted by Audubon, they bring good luck alive, not dead.
What is the prayer of the hummingbird?
The “Prayer of the Hummingbird” is a printed prayer sold with chuparosas, love charms made from dried dead hummingbirds. An Audubon article by a retired US Fish and Wildlife Service bird expert says the prayer asks for power over women, and that these charms are illegal in the US because the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects every native hummingbird. Please never buy one. If you want to pray when you see a hummingbird, a simple prayer of thanks for the living bird is all you need.
What does a hummingbird mean in love?
Many people read a hummingbird as sweetness, new romance or a reminder to open your heart. In a Cherokee story recorded by James Mooney, a woman loves the handsome Hummingbird, the slow Crane wins their race, and she still refuses to marry the Crane. In Mexico, the belief that hummingbirds bring love grew from their old link with good luck, but it now drives an illegal trade in dead-bird charms, so keep the meaning and leave the charms alone. Twin flame and color meanings are modern ideas; we found no old tradition behind them.
Is it rare to see a hummingbird up close?
Not in the Americas during the warm months. Cornell Lab of Ornithology puts the Ruby-throated Hummingbird population at about 36 million and rising. They often come close on purpose: to a feeder, to something red, or, for a male Anna’s Hummingbird, to show off with a dive that starts by hovering in front of a person. So the meaning of a close visit comes from the timing and how it felt, not from rarity.
I saw a hummingbird in the UK. Was it real?
It was almost certainly a hummingbird hawk-moth. The Wildlife Trusts say it is the only “hummingbird” in Europe, a day-flying moth that comes to the UK from Southern Europe each summer, hovers at flowers and hums. Real hummingbirds live only in the Americas. The moment can still mean something to you; it is just a different little creature.
