Free hummingbird SVG files

The bill and the feather lines

A hummingbird has two fragile parts in a cut file: the bill and the lines between its feathers. On the single birds the bill is about 4 mm wide at the head and tapers to a point, so the last few millimetres are fine. Weed towards the tip, not away from it, and on wood expect the very end to char a little. Where the bill feeds from a flower or a feeder it is drawn blunt and welded in, so those designs hold together.

The feather lines are a little under 2 mm wide on the single birds at 100 mm. They cut well in vinyl down to about 70 mm and in card at 100 mm. For anything smaller use the hummingbird silhouette, which keeps the feathered edge and has only the eye inside it.

Colours for a hummingbird

Many hummingbirds are metallic green above with a bright throat: ruby red on the ruby-throated hummingbird, rose pink or violet on others. The layered hummingbird follows that with a dark green body, teal feathers and a red throat. On a single-colour cut, holographic or metallic green vinyl gives the shimmer, and on the mandala hummingbird a sheet of patterned or gradient paper behind the windows does the same job.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions