Colour tattoo of a black-outlined kiwi bird filled with the New Zealand flag and Union Jack on the forearm.

Kiwi bird with New Zealand and Union Jack flags

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A black outline of a kiwi bird is filled with the New Zealand flag design, with blue fields and a red star, and a red, white and blue Union Jack pattern in the body. The bold black linework is solid and clean, with the colour applied flatly and smoothly inside the outlines. The bird sits diagonally across the centre of the frame against plain, lightly haired skin.

Forearm Bird Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The Mary Ellen came in on Tuesday with her nets full of nothing but dogfish and a cracked winch, and Dad stood on the quay for an hour after she tied up, as if you might still come down the gangway. I told him the post from Dunedin takes six weeks and he said he knows that, Joan, he's not daft. You know how he is about letters.

Your last one came with the drawing on the back, the little brown bird with its long curved beak and the two flags painted on it like a pair of gloves. Mrs Hale from chapel asked what it was meant to be. I said a kiwi, and she said she thought kiwis were fruit, and the vicar's wife laughed until she needed sitting down. I didn't laugh. I thought it was clever of you to put both flags in the one bird, the blue one with the stars and the red one with the cross, as if you could never be shot of either.

Dad has put your letter on the mantel behind the clock, face down, which I take to mean he's read it four times. He won't admit it. Come home one day, or send a photo of the real thing, a proper bird with proper legs, so he can see you haven't gone soft in the sun.

Your loving sister, Joan