Birds & Tattoos

Birds are a very, popular motif in tattoos; even more so, of course, if you are a birder. In the other links below, you will find a number of websites which either display bird tattoos or are stories about the wherefore and why of getting tattooed. Body art is something which is definitely on the increase, certainly in the UK, and birders, again, are no exception to that.

Maybe the major difference for birders is they want accuracy in the birds they have tattooed on them rather than artistry, although many are, indeed, works of art. Whereas non-birders may choose a bird tattoo as some sort of symbol, birders tend to pick their favourite bird or a bird that has been significant in their own life in some way. There are a number of birders who have been tattooed as part of a fundraising effort, and some, such as the ‘Inked Naturalist’, have thirty or more birds tattooed somewhere on their body. In his case, it was raising money to save an area that should have been under conservation in Turkey.

My own rather pathetic effort is in its sixth decade and although it’s a favourite bird, I cannot pretend it was linked to some conservation or fund-raising effort. Mine owes more to an early encounter with vodka than it does to my love of all things ornithological.