Black botanical tattoo on the upper back of a woman, showing a small bird perched on a branch that curves into a crescent of leaves and scrolls.

Bird on a branch in a leaf crescent on the upper back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small bird sits on a thin branch with leaves on the left, and the branch sweeps into a crescent of leaves with curled tendrils on the right. The design is rendered in solid black ink with grey tones in the leaf shading, and it is set against smooth, lightly lit skin. The photo is taken from behind, showing the upper back and shoulder blade with a black strap visible.

Botanical Back Bird Branch Leaves Crescent Scroll Tendril

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Pardoe had let the back bedroom to the same commercial traveller every August for nine years, and this August he had written to say he would not be coming, so the room stood stripped and smelling of vinegar when Nell carried the sheets up on Tuesday. The window looked over the harbour wall. Beyond it the bay curved like a fingernail paring, and on the sill someone had left a tin of barley sugar and a bird feather.

Keep reading

Nell did not own the feather. She had been at the house eleven weeks, since her mother's cousin found her a place in exchange for keeping the kitchen range lit before six. The range was temperamental. The boarding house was not. Every room had a name painted on a slate by the door, and the slates all hung crooked, as if the house had been built by people who expected the sea to come and straighten them.

On Wednesday a wren came in through the scullery door and perched on the pan rack as if it had booked. Mrs Pardoe said a bird in the house meant a letter was coming, and sure enough the postman left a bundle of cream paper with the milk. Nell opened it on the back step. Inside was a pressed sprig of rowan and a note in pencil: Keep the room for the moon week. Come if you can. The initials were M.H.

The moon was full on Friday. Nell walked out along the wall with the feather in her pocket and the rowan between her teeth, and at the far end, where the wall bent round the lighthouse, she saw a crescent of lamplight curling over the water like a branch that had decided to grow back on itself. She laughed out loud. Somewhere behind her, the wren answered.