Close-up of a solid black tribal-style bird head tattoo with a swirl detail, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal bird head tattoo on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black tribal-style design shows a stylised bird head in profile, with a hooked beak, a curled spiral forming the eye area and a sweeping tail-like shape below. The linework is bold with flat black fill and no shading. The image is a close crop with warm skin tones, and the design fills most of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ma,

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The gull has been with us since Tuesday, hooked beak and that mad curl over its eye, riding our wake like it owes the boat money. Skipper Haddow says a bird that follows a drifter for three days has business aboard, and he won't let anyone shoo it. Dougie swears it's his granddad come back to check the nets are being shot properly. I told him his granddad never once got sick over the rail.

We hauled the first full net off Wick on Wednesday and it came up so heavy the winch chain sang. Forty crans, near enough, silver to the elbow. The gull went wild over the offcuts, diving at the gutting table while the lads cursed and laughed, and Haddow laughed too, which I had not heard him do since we left Shetland. He's a hard man to see laugh. Worth the cold fingers, that was.

Now the swell has picked up and we're running for shelter, and the sky to the west has gone the colour of a bruise turning yellow at the edges. The bird is still up there, turning in a slow circle over the mast, neither coming nor going. Haddow reckons it knows the weather better than the glass does. I've decided to trust it. I'll post this at Lerwick if the wind lets us reach the quay.

Your loving son, Tam

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