Colour realism tattoo of a great horned owl with yellow eyes, pine branches, pine cones and oak leaves on the upper arm and shoulder, set against a pale moon.

Realistic owl with pine cones on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large owl with yellow eyes faces forward, its brown and cream feathers shaded in fine detail. Pine branches, two pine cones and autumn oak leaves sit around its lower body, and a pale moon glows behind its head. The shading is soft and smooth, with warm browns and oranges set against muted greens and blue-grey tones.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Owl Moon Pine cone Eye Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last goods train had gone through Larch Hollow before the owl came down onto the signal box roof, and Tom Ashby, who had kept the lamps there for thirty-one years, took his lantern out to see what it wanted. The moon was up behind the hill, big and yellow as a plate, and the owl sat square in its light with its eyes fixed on the sidings. Tom had no more sense than to follow it.

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Down past the water tower a coal wagon had worked loose from the end of the siding and was creeping onto the main line on the slope. Nobody had chocked it. The owl dropped from the gutter, went low over the rails, and came back to his shoulder, so near he felt the wind of its wings and smelled pine resin on it. Tom ran. He got the brake wheel turning with both hands while the oak leaves blew in circles round his boots, and the wagon stopped with a shudder a yard short of the points.

When he looked up the owl was on the telegraph pole, still as a knot. At his feet lay a pine cone, open and dry, as if someone had set it there on purpose.

In the morning the stationmaster asked who had set the brake, and Tom said he had not been sure. The book in the signal box recorded no name, only a wagon secured at a quarter past two. Tom kept the cone on his windowsill through the winter, and the line held, and when the first frost came again he found another one waiting on the step.