![]() "The main thing I can tell you is that winning the contest is not just about the visual appearance of the tattoo. I asked Kenn, in his official capacity as a judge, how he separates bad bird tattoos from great ones. Kenn Kaufman is not only a famous author and conservationist, but he’s also a three-time judge at the Biggest Week in American Birding’s Bird Tattoo Contest. That’s nice.įor more advice about what makes a good bird tattoo, I had to call in a heavy hitter. Her tattoo artist was able to turn her drawing into little temporary tattoos, which let her see in advance where on her body worked best. You can even do a trial run by drawing it on with a marker and walking around for a few days.Īudubon associate web editor Hannah Waters had a similar experience to my own with her tattoo: She picked a black-and-white bird, a Black-capped Chickadee (“Color cost more,” she said), used an image from a field guide, and tested out different locations for hide-ability and pain avoidance before getting the ink. Please give a lot of thought to where you want your tattoo to go. For me, that last one was really important I didn’t want to have to stare at my own ink all day long for fear of getting bored or regretting it. Both of my tattoos are on my arms (I have the outline of Maine on my right and the kittiwakes on my left) and are in places that didn’t hurt very much, can easily be covered up if needed, and are in places that I don’t see myself all the time. ![]() That kind of decision, about size and placement, depends on what you’re looking for, but it's something you should absolutely work out well in advance. I still think it’s a good idea, but it was going to end up being bigger than I wanted at the time. It would have been complete with the species names and identification arrows. I strongly considered getting a tattoo of something off the gull or tern page (remember, black and white) from my Peterson Field Guide, the first guide I ever owned. So I’d recommend going that route.įor a while there I almost got an actual image from a field guide. They’re literal, and as such, most bird tattoos are also pretty literal. The vast majority of birder tattoos that I know of represent an actual species-some more realistically than others-rather than some generalized bird standing in as a symbol of freedom or something. It’s difficult to offer advice about such a personal choice, but I will say this: Most birders I know would never get any of the first search results that pop up when you Google “ bird tattoo.” Elaborate fake swallow-type things. ![]() I bought the original drawing and made an appointment at the tattoo parlor. Plus, I really liked the idea of owning the piece of artwork my tattoo was based on. I do associate them with the rugged waters off my home state of Maine, and I have an amazing memory of seeing thousands of them from a whale-watch boat in the middle of the St. I don’t have any extreme connection with Black-legged Kittiwakes. Realistic? I mean, it’s a sketch, but yes. Sibley sells the original pen-and-ink drawings he created to illustrate his old newspaper column, and a simple drawing of a pair of Black-legged Kittiwakes jumped out at me. Then, in 2015, I was looking at the website of the famous field guide author David Sibley, and I found my tattoo. I didn’t want to force it, so I sat back and waited years for something to catch my eye. That narrowed things down quite a bit, leaving options like gulls, alcids, the Black-and-white Warbler, and a few other species. I did know that I wanted something black and white-colored tattoos just aren’t my thing-and I wanted something that looked more realistic than artistic. I knew for years that I wanted to get a bird tattoo, but I couldn’t settle on a species or an image. You’re stuck forever with whatever you select, so in hopes of helping you avoid regret, let’s talk through what makes a good bird tattoo. With more than 10,000 species of birds on the planet to choose from, picking your first bird tattoo can be a daunting challenge. The hardest part is: Which species do you pick? (At least we’re not parasitologists or something, right? My goodness.) I wholeheartedly endorse bird tattoos. Lots of us have tattoos of birds, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientists to understand why: People get tattoos of things they love, and, well, we really love birds. However, many members of a certain clan still frequently use body ink to mark their inclusion: birders. Tattoos don’t quite carry the same symbolic weight these days-heck, the public perception of tattooing has even softened in my lifetime, from an act of rebelliousness to something for mom and dads. Tattooing has been around for centuries, and for most of that time, it often served as a way to signal people belonged to a particular clan or tribe.
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