Black and grey fine line tattoos of two birds perched on a branch with a small heart above, shown on two ankles side by side.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching bird and branch ankle tattoos

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

Two ankles are shown, each with a small tattoo of two birds sitting close together on a thin branch with a tiny heart above them. The linework is fine and even, with small leaves or buds along the branch and simple solid black areas for the birds. The tattoos are in black ink only, and the photo is in greyscale against a plain floor and rug background.

Fine line Ankle Bird Branch Heart Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Edwin,

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You will think me soft in the head, writing about birds when the pipes have frozen twice this month, but there are two of them on the blackthorn by the lych gate and I have not been able to look at anything else. Mr Pask cut that hedge back in November and told me it would never flower again. He was wrong. The white came out in February, all at once, the way it does when the cold has finally had its say.

The birds are long-tailed tits, or I think they are, round as puffballs and forever fussing. They sit so close on the one thin twig that I cannot tell where one stops and the other starts. Every morning the smaller one hops down to the gatepost and comes back with moss in its beak, while the bigger one waits with its feathers puffed up as if it were dressed for church. Nobody taught them that. It is just what they do.

Yesterday the frost came down so hard the lane went to glass, and I stood at the window with the kettle going cold, expecting to find the branch bare by dinner. It was not. They were still there, pressed together under the blossom, with a little dusting of white on their backs. The milkman said it was a daft place for a nest. I said nothing and let him think I agreed.

I have started leaving crumbs on the sill for them. You should come up at Easter and see for yourself, because I have a feeling the eggs will be in the hedge by then, and I would rather not be the only one who knows.

Love, Maud