Black ink drawing of a hummingbird in flight, its wings and body filled with swirls, dots and teardrop shapes, on a pale paper background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornamental hummingbird design in black ink

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A hummingbird in mid-flight, with its long beak extended to the right and one wing raised high. The body and wings are built from bold black teardrop shapes, spirals and dots, with fine hatched linework inside the body. The design is drawn in black ink on a pale, textured background and is centred in the frame.

Blackwork Hummingbird Bird Swirl Dot Ornamental

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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

The hummingbird came in through the gap in the marquee flaps just as the vicar asked if anyone present knew of just cause why the two should not be joined, and it hung above the top table, wings a blur, while nobody answered. I was under the trestle with a nib pen and a pot of sepia ink, lettering place cards because the printer had sent the names in the wrong order, and my aunt had said a wedding without handwriting was merely a lunch.

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The bird was not interested in the vows. It worked its way along the tablecloth, dipping its beak into the sugar bowl, the jam dish and the cut-glass vase of sweet peas, and finally into the ink pot I had left open on the grass. When it lifted away again its feathers were stippled with black, every spiral and dot of them suddenly as neat as a Victorian pattern book, and it flew in a loop that looked like a scribble made by someone very sure of themselves.

Mrs Penhaligon, who had sat in the front row for sixty years and held opinions on everything, rose with her order of service and declared the bird had come to bless the match. Her husband said it had come for the cake, and nobody argued with either of them. I took a fresh card, dipped my pen, and drew the bird in one unbroken stroke: long beak to the right, one wing lifted high, a spiral at the shoulder unrolling like a fern. When I turned it round, the old lady was already crying, and the card in front of her read, in my best italic, Still here.