Small black fine line swallow tattoo in flight on the back of a person's neck, with pale hair falling beside it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallow tattoo on the back of the neck

Fine line · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A small swallow in flight is tattooed on the back of the neck, shown in side view with its wings swept back and a forked tail. The linework is thin and dark grey, with light shading on the wings and body. The background is soft and muted, with the person's hand and pale blonde hair framing the tattoo on a dark top.

Fine line Neck Swallow Bird

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 swallows came back to Ashcombe on the third of April, the same morning the wisteria on the south wall decided to open, and Mrs Pellow said it was no coincidence. You were nineteen and sent to scrape the lime wash off the potting shed door, which she said could wait for the birds. Two mud nests sat in the angle of the lintel, the colour of wet bread, and a pair of birds was already squabbling over the older one.

Keep reading

She gave you a stool and a flask of stewed tea and told you about the year her husband wanted the shed pulled down because of the mess. He had kept hens and hated anything that flew, until the summer a pair nested over the greenhouse vents and the cold frames came up earlier than any other garden in the valley. She never proved it. You said nothing, because a feather had dropped onto your sleeve and you were inclined to believe her.

By June the fledglings lined the gutter like sentences waiting for a full stop. You watched from the rhubarb bed, switching off the hose each evening when the parents came skimming low over the lawn, forks open, swinging wide over the box hedge. One evening the last chick lost its nerve on the wall, tumbled, and you caught it in your cupped hands before the cat could.

You carried it up the ladder and set it down with its brothers. Mrs Pellow was already at the gate with her secateurs, watching the sky. Next spring you would come back with your own tin of lime wash and find the nests empty, and you would stand there a while longer than you needed to.