Colour realism tattoo of a green and pink hummingbird in flight with a swoosh trail on a person's upper back, next to part of a rose tattoo.

Hummingbird in flight on upper back

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A hummingbird in mid-flight with outstretched pink and purple wings, green head and back, and a reddish-brown chest. Soft shading gives the feathers volume, and a pale blue-grey swoosh trails beneath the bird. A partial rose tattoo sits at the left edge of the frame, and the photo is taken from behind, showing the upper back and neck.

Realism Back Hummingbird Bird Rose Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bird came in through the loading bay of the flower market at ten past three, which is not a time anything should be flying in Sheffield. Dev was stacking buckets of roses by the shutter and swore he saw a green streak dart past the strip light, a flash of rose in its wings, and then nothing but the hum of the cold room.

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I found it an hour later, wedged between a crate of tulips and the drain, its beak pointed at the wall like a needle. It wasn't dead. It was saving itself, the way you do when the day has been too long, and when I cupped my hands around it, it didn't fight. Its chest was the colour of a wet conker and its back flashed green under the bulb. I carried it out into the car park where the rain had stopped and the streetlamps were making halos of everything.

Maggie from the till had told me years ago that hummingbirds beat their wings so fast they can't walk, and that they forget nothing about the places they've been. I thought about that while I waited. The thing in my hands kept lifting its head, measuring the dark, deciding. Then it left, not up but straight out, leaving a pale smear of air over the tarmac that hung there longer than it had any right to.

I stood under the lamp with my palms still curled, feeling for a weight that was gone. Two bus stops away, someone was singing badly through an open window. I went back inside and told Dev the cold room was clear. He said I looked like I'd seen a ghost. I said no, just a bird that knew exactly where it was going.