Black ink fine line tattoo of a hummingbird filled with swirling flourishes, placed on the upper back.

Swirl-filled hummingbird on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A hummingbird in mid-flight, drawn as a single black outline and filled with curling scrollwork in the wings, body and tail. The linework is even and fine, with varied line weight in the swirls, and the ink is solid black with no shading. The bird is centred on bare skin with visible freckles, against a plain pale background.

Fine line Back Hummingbird Bird Swirl Flourish Wing Outline

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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 band at the Gaiety has already started its third number when you notice the ink has gone thick in the cold. You have been sitting at the end of the bench with the dance card on your knee, pen in hand, too shy to cross the floor. Mr Ferrante, who teaches the Thursday class and takes his tea black, leans over your shoulder and tells you the trick is to let the nib do the work and keep your wrist still, the way you would hold a partner you did not want to lose.

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So you draw a bird instead of writing your name. You start with the beak, one needle-fine line running out from nowhere, then the head rolls round on itself like a ribbon dropped on a waxed floor. The body takes three loops. The wings are long curls you are not allowed to lift the pen for, and Ferrante says that if any two of them cross, the bird will fall out of the air at the first turn. The tail fans out last, feathers that scroll back on themselves until the whole thing looks less like a bird and more like music caught mid-breath.

Lorraine from the tea urn comes over before the waltz ends, her card already full of names, and asks what you have been doing for an hour. You turn the card around. She studies the hummingbird for a long moment, then tilts her head and says it looks like it is still moving. You tell her that is the point of the swirls. She writes her own name in the space beside it, small, in the curve of the left wing, and when the band strikes up the quickstep she takes the card with her, holding it up like a ticket, the bird's tail still wet and curling toward the lamps.