FOREST craftsman Clayton Ryder has made a deer emerge from the Dean!

What's more the skilled member of the Dean Heritage Centre team at Soudley has made his chainsaw creation a real Forest rarity – a red deer, though, for the moment, it has a buck's antlers!

There is, says Clayton, still work to be done on the eight feet tall stag which has already attracted attention and high praise from visitors. Once completed, the deer will be displayed at the centre as part of a group of larger than life carvings.

Clayton says the deer has been carved from the trunk of a coastal redwood tree estimated to be about 55 years old. It was felled near New Fancy.

The butt of the tree was around five feet across and work on the project began only last week.

"You have to admire Clayton. He sees things in a piece of wood no-one else can," says his Heritage Centre sidekick Dave Harvey. Clayton has been carving with a chainsaw since 2003.

His latest work has already attracted a purchaser but will remain at Soudley probably until June.

By the end of May the deer will have another unusual companion and one local fishermen will be wary of. Clayton is soon to begin work on a grizzly bear – complete with a salmon in its mouth!