Sir, I thought it would be helpful to give a bit of background information to last week’s picture poser for Allens View.

The chainsaw carving is a red kite, perching, made by the tree surgeon Dan Badham of Church Farm landscapes (pictured carrying out the work).

The carving was one of six in Allens View sponsored by Tenby Rotary Club, as a project to celebrate the past and present links with Tenby Civic Society.

There are four owls ‘planted’ beside the paths, the large red kite, and a specially beautiful and detailed peregrine falcon.

Red kites are a favourite of Dan’s and peregrines have nested around Tenby for many years, so that was a specially fitting species to choose.

Dan uses two sizes of chainsaw, the smaller to do details and finishing. He also uses a blow lamp to burn off fibres and to darken the wood.

The tree stumps were large oversized leylandii trees cut down for long term safety reasons after a tree survey, as branches had failed.

Rather than cutting them off low down to become trip hazards we decided to retain some stumps three feet high and some at eight feet for future projects when funding was available.

Civic Society volunteers have converted two stumps into a bench using some reclaimed fence rails.

Another became a stand for a notice board, but two tall stumps were left in the hope of using them for carvings.

So it was, later that Tenby Rotary approached the Society to fund a project at Allens View and the set of six bird carvings was agreed and came to fruition and has been much admired since.

Harry Gardiner,

Tenby Civic Society