Skye the Kestrel

23 October 202423 July 2025

Thinking about what to make for the next Parkwood Springs Community Lantern Procession.

Watching the kestrels over Parkwood Springs over the summer inspired me. I was struck by their ability to hover almost motionless in the air. I’d played around with inventing a kinetic sculpture of a kestrel, a giant weather vane, for a commission in Rotherham, but the engineering needed flummoxed me.

Working out ideas with Jo Veal, we considered suspending an enormous kestrel on the frame at the viewpoint. But once we began to make it, we dismissed this notion and decided to have people operate it – a giant puppet! This proved to be a far better way.

Looking back to our first lantern procession

Funding from Sheffield Town Trust and the Local Area Committee (Sheffield City Council)

Workshops at Abbeyfield House

Here we are making our wonderful kestrel for Parkwood Springs Community Lantern Procession 2024. First, we drew the kestrel to scale and traced the charcoal with willow, which worked well and helped us keep to size and proportions. Over the course of three weeks, people came and helped construct the frame, add the LED lights and paper it. I think we were all too busy adding the tissue paper to photograph that stage, but here’s some great shots of the making.