Black and White

The sparrow symbolizes God's concern for the most insignificant living things. In the same way God loves and watches over the sparrow, he knows each person is unique and to be treasured and consequently surely watches over humans. It's a great tattoo, if you see one and they also have scripture with it ask them about it. the best way to find out would be to talk to people who have one. each bird has a different symbolic meaning.
Back in the days of the tall ships, sailors would get a sparrow tattoo for crossing a sea, i.e., from the US to England. A seaman with 5,000 miles or more under his belt earned the right to a sparrow tattoo. Some called it a swallow. There you go.... .

Sparrows and swallow tattoos are often grouped as the same thing....

• swallows were gotten by pirates when they travel over 100,000 miles or over the equator and back, they would ge one on the way one on the way back... (often done on collarbones) they have a symbolism of "safe travel/safe return" they also are a symbol of true love (more so with swallows) but swallows mate for life, and no matter where each of them are in the world, once a year they both meet up in the Galapagos Islands to mate.... amongst millions of other birds, all over the world, they find each other...
• -What most of this is talking about is Swallows, not sparrows. Oold sailors would tattoo one swallow for 5,000 miles, until they had their 2 swallows, after that they would do stars, often on the hands or in the ears. The crossing of the equator has little to do with the swallows. Crossiing the equator would generally be remembered with a tattoo of Neptunus Rex, or some manner of turtle, to represent the order fo the Shellback. Like most sailor-esque tattoos, its a good luck token. By all means, any tattoo is whatever you want it to mean, do it for you.