Black and grey fine line tattoo of a hummingbird in flight with swirling trails and two feathers, on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hummingbird and feathers on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A hummingbird in flight faces right, with its wings raised and a long thin beak, and a curling line trails from its tail down to two shaded feathers. The linework is very fine and the body and wings are built up with stippled dots and short strokes for soft shading. The tattoo is shown in black and grey against a pale skin tone, with a blurred indoor background and a checked fabric at the edge of the frame.

Fine line Dotwork Forearm Hummingbird Bird Feather Swirl Wing

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The hummingbird came down the lane on the morning of the wedding, while the bells of Saint Brannoc were still being oiled and the bread had not yet risen. Nobody had asked it. It hung over the trestle tables with its wings a blur, and the baker's boy swore it looked straight at the bride before it went.

Keep reading

The bride, Maud Tallow, had meant to wear the blue cloth her grandmother wove, but moths had got into it over the winter. What she had instead was a length of thread the colour of rain and two grey feathers she had found in the church porch, soft at the tips. She bound them to her wrist with the thread. When the bird saw the feathers it dropped low and turned three times over the lych gate, then flew east towards Crendle Moor, where the groom had gone at first light to fetch his brother's cart from the ford and had not come back.

The fog on the moor took men who forgot their own names, so people said. Maud did not wait to be told it was foolish. She pulled a loose end of thread from her wrist and ran after the bird, trailing it behind her through the bracken. The bird kept just ahead, doubling back whenever the mist thickened, until a grey shape loomed on the path and Jack Renn stood there with the cart wheel in his hands, staring at her as if she were a stranger.

They were married an hour late, and the thread was still knotted round his cuff. Maud kept the feathers folded in her prayer book. Every spring after that, a hummingbird came to the churchyard and hung in the air above the gate a moment, as if checking that the vows still held.