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If you are looking for the best bird tattoo or flying bird tattoo, then you are at the right place. Check out our list of bird tattoos now.
If we go by recent posts on social media, bird tattoos are one of the most popular tattoos around the world now.
Every different bird symbolizes different things when tattooed. In the same way, a single bird tattoo, a flying bird tattoo, or a flock of birds flying tattoos all have different meanings to them as well.
If you want to know what does a bird tattoo symbolize or what does the bird tattoo mean, then the most popular answer for that would be freedom and independence. They are also used as a symbol for other things like happiness, optimism, or peace. They mean the same thing on men and women. Many people get tattoos like a kind of shackle transforming into a flock of flying birds to truly express the freedom they feel after hardships. In addition to the generic meanings of bird tattoos, a tattoo of 3 birds can mean everything gets better in time. The tattoo of just the wings of birds can also mean freedom, while a tattoo of a single feather or many feathers is also a symbol of bravery, courage, and truth. Choose your favorite bird tattoo to ink from the list below.
Glorious Black Bird Tattoo
Blackbirds are glorious intelligent birds that are always alert. They are protective of their homes. They look similar to crows other than their orange beaks. These birds represent high intelligence, thoughts, and ideals. They are known to be pretty famous with alchemists. At times they are also associated with life in high heaven, as a higher sense of spirituality.
You could experiment in many ways with your blackbird tattoo design. You can go for beautiful birds flying design with simple colourful flowers, like the one in the picture above. You could also include some other designs into the tattoo. Such as some abstract word designs and mix up colors and with the traditional black and grey style of design, like the one in the picture below.
You could play with the basic design of the bird, make a cartoon out of it and make scenarios of your own. If you want to show one particular thing the bird represents, you could come up with your own art that helps you express that specifically.
Magnificent Owl Tattoo
When we say owls, the first adjective that comes to our minds is ‘wise’. That is what these birds represent mostly. An owl represents wisdom, transformation, knowledge, and protection. They are quite famous in many cultures around the world, like, Hindu, Celtic, and Egyptians. In Hindu culture, there are thousands of deities, and many deities are associated with different animals. Goddess Laxmi in particular can be seen with an owl by her side at all times. That’s why, in Hindu culture, an owl is thought to bring good luck and wealth. In other cultures, owls are also thought to be guardians of death. People of these cultures believe if they see an owl, it means someone they lost is being looked after in the afterlife, so they are hailed as protectors.
As owls have a spiritual connection, including mandala design in the owl tattoo can increase the significance, as shown in the picture above. Baby owls look extremely cute due to their small bodies with large round eyes. You can make a cartoon design out of a baby owl picture and tattoo it with watercolour as can be seen in the picture below.
Owls can take silent flight and are highly associated with the nightlife and in many movies, people have used the calls of these birds to capture the essence of the night. That’s why many people get tattoos of owls including the moon somewhere in the design. You can come up with your own nightlife design for your next owl tattoo.
Tenacious Hummingbird Tattoo
Hummingbird is a small bird that can be extremely tenacious. They are the smallest birds in the world yet they can also flutter their wings at such a speed when they are flying a humming sound can be heard. They are extremely hard workers and as they are small, they need to go through many struggles to survive. That’s why the main thing that hummingbirds represent is overcoming tough times. The bird represents hard work and vigor. Hummingbird tattoos are also known to have meanings, like, life, love, charm, joy, and hope. In some cultures around the world, they are also known to symbolize peace. These tattoos are one of the most popular bird tattoos.
Hummingbirds have wonderfully colourful feathers. The way they hover over flowers when they are sucking our nectar looks extremely pretty. You can capture that image in your design like it’s shown in the picture above. As they are so colourful, watercolour also works wonders for hummingbird tattoos, as can be evident from the picture below.
You can also go for a simple and minimalistic hummingbird tattoo design on your arm, specifically on the forearm or wrist, on the ankle, leg, or shoulder. Bring out your creative side, get your design of flying birds drawn by your tattoo artist, or come up with your own pretty hummingbird tattoos.
Majestic Eagle Tattoo
Eagles are large majestic birds and they are known as birds of prey. If you see an eagle up close, its royal look is certain to leave an impression on you. These birds represent power, strength, leadership, freedom, victory, longevity, royalty, and pride in life. The bald eagle in particular is a popular bird in America and it symbolizes patriotism to the people of the country. Eagles have a spiritual association as well. They have keen eyesight, so they are linked with the symbol of all-seeing-eye many times. They have the ability to fly at a very high altitude and due to this ability of flight, they are associated with many sky Gods.
In the midst of modern new tattoo designs, many are still keeping the traditional tattoo designs alive as well. The traditional design of the eagle in the picture above is particularly very famous. You can choose other designs as well like the creative one in the picture below where the eagle is made up of geometric shapes and the eye surely stands out.
Eagles are beautiful and you can capture and carry that beauty if you opt for a realistic design of the birds. You can use black ink or colours both for your eagle tattoo design, and they both will look amazing. Choose at your heart’s content.
Enigmatic Crow Tattoo
Many people are scared of crows, but crows have a mystery surrounding them that attracts a lot of people too. Crows are associated with many macabre things, but they are not all bad. The meanings of the crow tattoo that people want to portray depend on every individual themselves. Crows usually represent death, bad news, transformation, and to some people, crows are considered as spirit guides. The interpretation changes according to different cultures. North Americans see crows as the connection between the dead and the living. In Japan and China, crows are rather loved and their myth talks about the transformation of crows.
The night is for the dead and as crows are associated with death and bad news, you can get a dotwork tattoo design of a crow on black roses with a moon shining on top, like the picture above. You can also go for a crow tattoo design sitting on ominous dead trees in a grave. This shows the connection of crows to the dead and living.
You can also get a tattoo of the murder of crows or a single crow transforming into something beautiful. Choose what meaning of the crow tattoo you want to show and get yourself a design that tells the story of that.
Spiritual Dove Tattoo
Dove tattoos are pretty common worldwide due to the various meanings they have. Many cultures around the world believe doves have a spiritual connection, especially a connection with Gods. They represent God’s will and victory and are believed to be spirits of the dead and messengers of God. Doves mate for life and that’s why they are also known to embody love. However, the most famous symbolism of doves is peace. Dove birds flying with olive branches in their mouth is the worldwide symbol of peace.
If you want to express peace in your life or you may want to promote peace, then you can opt for a design that can be seen in the picture above. If you want to express your love for God, his will, you can go for a full arm tattoo like the picture below.
White ink for dove tattoos can look extremely pretty. You can tattoo a pair of doves on a branch or to express love or a family of doves to show the value of family that these birds embody. Get your flying bird with an olive branch tattoo drawn on your shoulder, back, chest, or legs today.
Radiant Peacock Tattoo
Peacocks are magnificently large colourful birds. They are extremely graceful and are sure to catch your eye. They are pretty popular in myths in African and Asian cultures. Especially in Indian and Hindu culture, peacocks are associated with many deities, such as Lord Kartikeya and Lord Krishna. Lord Krishna can be seen wearing a peacock feather on his head at all times. Peacocks also represent love, resurrection, virility, optimism, glory, hope, royalty.
Peacocks have such shape and such unique feathers that a minimalistic or simple bird tattoo design of the birds can look beautiful, like the picture above. These birds are large and radiant, so a large full-body art, a coloured design can also look extremely beautiful, as is evident from the picture below.
You can also get blue watercolour tattoos of just a single feather of the peacock or their feathers in the shape of a bouquet. You can add some words into the peacock tattoo design, like love, freedom, hope, free, or hope. Tickle your fancy with new, beautiful, and unique peacock tattoos.
Soaring Swallow Tattoo
Swallows are pretty little birds. They are tireless and hard-working owing to their small size. Throughout history swallow tattoos have been used by sailors to express their journey and to bring good luck in their journey. It is believed the more the sailors travelled the more the number of swallows they tattooed. Swallows have the ability to fly far yet come back to their homes no matter how far they went. That’s why many sailors tattooed two swallows on two sides of the chest, where one represented their home, and the other represented their destination. People also believed that if a sailor was to lose their life in their journey, the swallows would carry their souls to heaven.
Birds represent freedom in general, so you can get a flying bird, a swallow tattoo design with the free or freedom words written in there, like the one in the picture above. You can also tattoo multiple birds flying towards the sky like in the picture below.
Swallow birds in silhouette tattoos look pretty cool. You can also come up with cartoon pictures of swallows and tattoo them. Come up with your own unique swallow tattoos for your next bird tattoo design.
Charming Robin Tattoo
Robins are charming little birds that get much more attractive owing to their sweet songs. They have beautiful reddish-orange breasts that make them stand out. Robins represent everything positive. The most popular interpretations of Robins are new beginnings, physical and spiritual growth, and rebirth. They are also believed to be messengers of good news. At times Robins also indicate the sacrificing and selfless natures of people.
Robins have orange breasts in an otherwise grey body, which is why we recommend colourful Robin tattoos. Especially they look gorgeous in watercolour as is evident from the picture above. You can add some pretty pink, blue, or some other pastel coloured things into the Robin tattoo design to make it more vibrant like the picture below.
You can also get Robin tattoos in abstract designs or in some traditional form of design. We can assure you whichever design you choose, your Robin tattoos will look gorgeous.
Mystical Phoenix Tattoo
Phoenixes don’t exist, they are rather mythical birds. Hailing from Greek mythology and associated with the Sun, a Phoenix is believed to be immortal. It is believed that Phoenixes born again from the ashes of the fire they died. It is a popular mythical bird on the silver screen. They have been heard in many stories and used as characters in many fictional movies around the world. For example, Fawkes the Phoenix from the Harry Potter series is a pretty popular bird. Due to the characteristics of being reborn from the ashes, this magical bird represents birth and rebirth, death, immortality, strength in life. They go through fire to be reborn, that’s why they are also known to represent overcoming hardships.
This bird is believed to have a beautifully mystical body along with colourful plumage. You can get the outlines of the Phoenix tattoo design done and then fill it with wonderful watercolour, like the picture above. You can also try a design including some other features from the Harry Potter books and movies to make it a Harry Potter Fawkes the Phoenix tattoo, like the picture below.
You can choose from many designs for a Phoenix tattoo for men and women. You can opt for a minimalistic red or blue coloured little bird tattoo, or large full-body art, a black and grey tattoo. You can include some words that are associated with Phoenix tattoo like reborn, free, strength, or freedom. Choose whichever you like the best.
You already know what does a bird tattoo mean and know the meaning of every style of bird tattoo art. Other than the list above you can also choose from ideas of some tattoo designs, like –
- Full body art of a blue bird tattoo
- ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ tattoo
- Minimalistic single little bird tattoo in red, green, blue, or in any colour
- Full body art of many birds tattoo, such as blue bird, Parrot, Raven, and more together
Other than permanent ones, if you want to know how to draw a bird tattoo for a temporary bird tattoo, then you can take help from YouTube on the particular bird you want to tattoo. Go for the best bird tattoo and ink on your upper arm, shoulder, posts, wrist, leg, or anywhere you please.
Feature Image from Pinterest – Love this design? Try a Temporary Tattoo
