Colour realism tattoo of two small songbirds perched on pink plum blossom branches over a soft orange circle, on the calf.

Two songbirds on plum blossom on a calf

Realism · Calf · Colour · Photo

Two small songbirds with blue caps and green and yellow bodies perch on thin branches with pink plum blossoms. Their feathers are shaded softly with fine detail in the wings and eyes. A soft orange and pink circle sits behind them, and the bright colour ink is set on a lower leg.

Realism Botanical Calf Bird Songbird Blossom Branch Sun

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The plum tree behind the net loft at Carrick Quay had come into flower three days early, and Nell Varley noticed only because the gulls had stopped shouting at the bins. She stood on the cobbles with a coil of tarred rope over one shoulder and watched two small birds work the branches, their caps bright as fresh paint on a hull, their bellies the green-yellow of new cress.

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Her grandfather had planted the tree the year the ferry stopped running to the outer islands. He used to say the birds would come to it because birds always came to whatever somebody had bothered to plant. Nell had taken that for the sort of thing old men said to fill a silence. Now the pair hopped from twig to twig, nipping at the pink blooms and ignoring the tide tables pinned to the loft door.

She had meant to sell the loft since March. The man from the marina wanted the timber, the yard and the view, and had offered a figure that would clear the slipway debts. Nell had not answered his last email. Instead she climbed onto the wall, sat on the sill, and waited while the sun came up low and orange over the water, until the whole back yard looked lit from inside.

One bird dropped onto the wall beside her, cocked its head, and considered her with an eye ringed in white. Then it flicked back to the branch, and its mate followed, and neither seemed to think the tree needed anybody's permission. Nell deleted the marina's message, put the phone face down on the warm stone, and left the loft exactly where it was.