Black and grey fine line tattoos of birds on two wrists, with two perched birds on a thin line and a flying bird on the left wrist and a single flying bird on the right.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bird tattoos on two wrists

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

Two wrists are shown side by side, with the hands raised at the top of the frame. The left wrist carries two small birds perched on a thin horizontal line, with a third bird flying above it, while the right wrist has a single small bird in flight. The designs are rendered in fine black linework and solid black shading against a soft grey, blurred background.

Fine line Other Bird Line Flying bird

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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

You bring the first trays out at ten to five, when the street is still the colour of wet slate and the shutter is only halfway up. Flour sits on your forearms like chalk dust. Across the road a telephone wire sags between two chimneys, and on it three starlings have already settled, though it is too dark to see them properly. You know they are there because the wire dips under their weight and then lifts again, one bird at a time.

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Oswin, who has kneaded here for thirty years, says the birds are gossips and come for the crumbs you throw out back. You have never thrown anything out back. You have only left the bin lid propped open since March, and he has never asked why. The loaves go into the oven in turn. The sourdough needs eleven minutes longer than you want to give it, so you stand at the window with your palms on the cold sill and count the birds as they come in, two on the line, one above them, and then the fourth, which is always late.

The last one arrives when the sky turns the grey of a pigeon's back. It lands badly, skids along the wire, and hangs in the air a long moment before dropping in beside the others. Oswin laughs and says that is how you know it means it. You take the first loaf out, tap its base with your knuckle, and hear the hollow answer you were hoping for.

By the time the bakery opens, the wire is empty and a single bird is crossing the rooftops towards the river, low and quick, not looking back. You wipe your hands on your apron, fold the dough cloth in four the way your mother did, and unbolt the door for the first customer.