Feathers are usually associated with birds or wings or Native American imagery in most tattoo designs. A single feather as a tattoo design may represent or symbolize the ability to take flight, either spiritually, emotionally or creatively.

Some feathers are so distinctive in their shape and size that they are easily identified with a specific species of bird, such as the feathers of the Eagle, Peacock, Ostrich Plume, and Egret, just to name a few. Such a feather would represent the characteristics attributed to that bird.

The Peacock is known as ‘the bird of 100 eyes’, due to the patterning in its tail feathers. The ‘eyes’ became a favourite mythic metaphor as all-seeing witnesses to hidden transgressions. The concept found its way into religious belief as the symbol of beatific vision. In the ancient myths of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the Peacock feather was a symbol of the ‘evil eye’, and even today the Peacock feather is viewed with suspicion and kept out of the house in some parts of Europe.