Colour tattoo of a hummingbird above orange and red hibiscus flowers with green leaves, running down a lower leg on the calf above red trainers.

Hummingbird and hibiscus flowers on a lower leg

Botanical · Calf · Colour · Photo

A hummingbird hovers above large orange and red hibiscus blooms, with smaller pink flowers, green leaves and dots of foliage spread down the leg. A pale orange sun sits behind the bird, and the petals are shaded softly with blended tones. Bright colours dominate the composition, which runs vertically from the ankle towards the knee.

Botanical Realism Calf Hummingbird Hibiscus Flower Leaves Sun Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the hummingbird came in the crate with the hibiscus from the Falmouth docks, the one addressed to Mrs Pascoe that nobody claimed. I found it on Tuesday morning, wedged between the wet straw and a tin of tea, its wings still going like a clock wound too tight. I had no idea what a bird that small was doing on a cargo boat from Madeira. Father would have called it a sign. Father called most things signs, usually about the price of coal.

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I kept it in the glasshouse with the door propped open and a saucer of sugared water on the potting bench. For three days it went from bloom to bloom along the orange hibiscus, pushing its beak into the trumpets as if it had been sent to inspect them. It ignored the red ones entirely. The sun I had painted on the glass for the summer fair kept catching its blue-green back through the panes, and the men from the fish quay began stopping at the gate to watch it.

On Friday the door was open and it was gone. Only one petal lay on the bench, a little crumpled, the colour of a struck match. I have decided it went looking for you. You always said the sea would bring things back if you gave it long enough.

Come home before the hibiscus drops. Mrs Pascoe has asked after you twice and I told her you were somewhere warm, which is nearly true. Your loving sister, Nell.