Yes. Hummingbirds return to the same yards and the same feeders season after season, and banding records back it up rather than just backyard folklore.
Banders working with ruby-throated hummingbirds routinely recapture the same marked individuals at the same sites in consecutive years. That is about as direct as evidence for site fidelity gets.
How a bird this small remembers anything
Hummingbirds carry an unusually large hippocampus for their body size, and the hippocampus is the structure tied to spatial memory.
Research on rufous hummingbirds found they track not only which flowers they visited but roughly how long ago, and time their return to match refill rates. A feeder is a very easy version of that problem.
They also read the surroundings, not the object. The bird remembers the corner of the porch, the shrub line and the roof edge, then looks for the feeder inside that frame.
Site fidelity along the migration route
Migrating hummingbirds tend to reuse the same routes and the same stopovers. A bird that fed in your yard last August may check that exact spot on the way through this year.
Young birds are the exception on the first trip south, since they migrate without their parents and have no route memory yet. Survivors that make it back often return to the area where they hatched.
Keep the feeder findable
Shifting a feeder a few feet is fine. Moving it to the opposite side of the house resets the search, and some returning birds will pass through without finding it.
Timing matters as much as position. Hang it before the first arrivals rather than after you spot one, using the regional dates in the guide on when to put out hummingbird feeders.
Give a returning bird a reason to stay
Keep the nectar simple. Four parts water to one part white sugar, no dye, following the standard hummingbird nectar recipe.
Then keep it clean. Nectar ferments quickly in warm weather and black mould in the ports will drive birds off a remembered feeder faster than moving it would, which is why the routine in how to clean a hummingbird feeder is worth following through summer.
Add a second feeder out of sight of the first. Dominant males defend a single station, and the extra one lets quieter birds settle in.
