Fine line black hummingbird tattoo on a person's side ribs, photographed in a mirror selfie with a phone held in front of the torso.

Hummingbird line tattoo on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A single-line hummingbird in flight is drawn in black ink on the side of the ribs, with its long beak, wing and tail formed from continuous strokes. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the design is shown in black ink only against lightly tanned skin. The bird sits diagonally across the lower ribcage, with a dark sweatshirt pulled up above it and grey trousers below.

Fine line Ribs Hummingbird Bird Line art

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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

You have been bending the same length of copper wire since the thaw, and the wood at the edge of the village has started to notice. Your grandmother kept a cold forge at the bottom of the lane, and her one rule was that a shape must be made without lifting the pliers, so the line never crosses itself. You thought it a rule for show until the morning the dog stopped barking at the bramble and simply stood looking at the hedge.

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A hummingbird had come through the gap by the stile, green as a bottle, and hung there in the frost like a pinned thought. It was gone before you reached the gate. Only the feeder you had hung on the post, its sugar water untouched all week, told you it had been real. So you took the wire from the drawer, cut an arm's length, and started at the beak, then the long stroke of the wing, then the forked tail, never letting the line break.

It took three evenings. On the third, the wire closed on itself exactly where the tail met the body, and the bird sat on your palm as light as a sycamore seed. You carried it down to the stile at dusk and hooked it over the wooden post. The wind turned it, and for a moment it seemed to lean into the air, as if it had only been waiting for somewhere to point.

In the morning the wire was still on the post, but the feeder was empty and a single green feather lay in the mud below. Beside it ran a line of small prints that went round the field, through the gap, and back to your door, never once doubling over its own path.