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Flying Bird Silhouettes: 20 Designs from a Barn Swallow and Eagle to Bird Flocks and an Open Birdcage
Twenty birds on the wing in black and white, from a fork-tailed swallow and a spread-winged eagle to a hovering hummingbird and a heron with its legs trailing, plus a V of geese, two small flocks and birds leaving an open cage. Every design comes as a solid silhouette and as an outline.
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Not one bird in this silhouette set is standing still. Fourteen designs are single birds caught mid-flight, five gather several birds into a formation or a small scene, and the last is an open line drawing of a bird with both wings raised. Each design comes as a solid black silhouette and as an outline.
Fourteen birds, fourteen wing shapes
The wings change as much as the birds do. The barn swallow (01) sweeps forward with its long forked tail streaming out behind, the gull (03) glides on long angled wings, and the eagle (04) faces you with both wings spread and its tail fanned. The hummingbird (05) hovers with its needle bill pointed forward, the falcon (06) banks on narrow pointed wings, and the dove (07) holds a sprig of olive leaves in its beak. The owl (08) flies straight at you with its talons hanging below.
Side views take over after that: a raven (09), a heron with its neck folded back and its legs trailing (10), and a pelican with its long pouched bill (11). The chimney swift (12) is a thin crescent of wing, and the albatross (13) is nearly all wingspan, more than three times as wide as it is tall. A sparrow with its wings lifted and its feet curled beneath it (14) and a long-tailed macaw (15) finish the single birds.
A V of geese, two flocks and an open cage
Design 02 is seven geese flying in a V. The two flocks climb from lower left to upper right, five birds in the scattered one (16) and six in the rising one (17). Design 18 is the simplest in the set: five curved wing marks, the kind of distant bird you’d sketch in a sky, with no heads or feathers. In 19 a domed birdcage stands with its door swung open while three birds fly up and away from it.
Design 20 is the odd one out. It’s a bird drawn entirely in long flowing lines, wings up and tail feathers spread, and it stays line art in both versions. START-HERE.txt also points out that these are 20 compositions rather than 20 species, and stylized art rather than an identification chart, so the swallow and the swift are drawn to be recognized, not to settle a birding argument.
Solid and outline, design by design
In the solid version most of the larger birds aren’t plain black. Rows of feathers are cut into the wings as thin white lines on the eagle, the owl, the raven, the sparrow and the macaw, and the owl keeps its round facial disc and eyes. The swallow and the minimal birds are smooth, unbroken shapes.
The outline follows the edge of the bird as a thin closed band. How much detail it keeps inside varies: the swallow’s outline still shows its wing feathers, while the eagle’s comes down to the contour and a few small marks. CUTTING-NOTES.txt describes the outlines as narrow filled bands, not single-stroke paths.
Sizing a wall flock
The SVG and DXF files sit on a 10-inch square canvas, with each design about 8.6 inches across its widest side. On the US Letter full-page PDFs the birds print about 6.3 inches at their longest. The four-per-page sheets bring that to about 3.1 inches and the six-per-page sheets to about 2.6, and every multi-copy page repeats a single design.
For flocks, CUTTING-NOTES.txt keeps every bird at least half an inch across and gives a minimum overall width for each group: 8.1 inches for the V of geese, 3.7 for the rising flock, 3.2 for the scattered flock, 4.6 for the cage scene and 1.3 for the minimal birds. The geese are the catch. On the full-page Letter PDF the V prints only about 6.3 inches wide, so if you’re cutting it, scale the SVG or DXF up rather than using the printed page. Cage bars, separate birds and fine feather cuts may also need bridges, weeding or transfer depending on your method. None of the designs has been test-cut, so try one at your size and material before a full project.
Questions
- Are the flock designs one piece or separate birds?
- Separate birds. In the V of geese (02), the two flocks (16 and 17), the five minimal birds (18) and the cage scene (19), each bird is its own shape with space around it, and CUTTING-NOTES.txt says that's intentional. Plan on placing them one at a time, or add bridges if you want a one-piece stencil.
- Is there a filled version of design 20?
- No. Design 20 is line art in both folders. The copy in the solid folder is the same drawing with heavier lines, not a black silhouette.
