Pencil sketch of two owls perched together, one behind the other, drawn in fine feathered linework as a possible tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two owls in pencil sketch

Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows two owls with large round eyes, one set behind and slightly higher than the other, both with feathered tufts on their heads. The feathers are built up with fine, directional pencil strokes, and light shading sits behind the front owl's body and along the branch beneath its feet. The composition is monochrome on a plain pale background with loose foliage lines at the edges.

Owl Bird Feather Branch

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The owls had been in the goods shed roof since before my father took the night pass at Thornbury Junction, and by the time the 11.40 came through I had stopped expecting them to leave. Mrs Oakes at the ticket office swore the pair were the same two that had watched the company men argue over the old water tower in 1961. I didn't believe her, but I liked the thought of it, so I left a corner of my sandwich on the sill for the bigger one, who always sat higher and kept an eye on the platform while the smaller one dozed.

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The night the down signal failed, I was the only soul on the platform with a lamp. Rain came sideways off the fields. I walked the length of the platform with the lamp swinging, and the big owl dropped from the gutter and flew ahead of me, low, settling on the fence post at the crossing every few yards as though it meant to lead me by the hand. The smaller one stayed put on the gutter, its head turning slowly, watching the cutting.

I found the fault at the point rodding, a wire snapped by a fallen branch, and by the time I had it mended the lamp was nearly out. When I looked up, both owls were on the shed ridge, one set behind the other, neither moving, the way they sat in the faded photograph pinned above the parcels office kettle.

The 12.10 ran through on time. In the morning Mrs Oakes asked whether I'd seen the owls. I said they were still there. She said that was the trouble with owls: they never told you which of them had been doing the watching. I left the crust on the sill again, and this time I put down two.