Red cardinal on a branch
Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo
A red cardinal with a black crest and face mask sits on a grey branch with green leaves beside it. The bird is rendered with soft shading and visible feather detail, with black and grey tones along the edges. The design is centred on a pale patch of skin, with the waistband of dark clothing visible at the top and bottom of the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Nell, They kept me in the cold room at the Ferrymead checkpoint until the lamps came on, and the officer with the grey moustache turned my sketchbook over one page at a time as if the birds might fly out of it. I told him they were only drawings. He held up the one of the cardinal on the grey branch and asked whether it was a real bird or a made-up one, and I said it was the only thing I had ever drawn that looked as though it was in a hurry to be seen.
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Grandad Abel always said the cardinals came to his feeder in Ohio only in the coldest months, when the rest of the garden had gone to ash, and that a red bird on a grey branch was the whole argument for staying put. He taught me their call, three clear notes, and the officer asked me to whistle it. I did, badly, and he very nearly smiled. Then he stamped my form and said a bird has no nationality, which I think was meant as a joke, though he didn't laugh at it himself.
The leaves in the drawing are from the bramble by the lock gate at home, not the willow Abel used to point at, because he told me to save the best green until last. I am posting you the page so you can see how the colour sits against the wood. Keep it flat in the drawer with the tide tables, and please don't let Mum fold it. I will be back across before the feeder needs filling.
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