Ducks that live in an East Lancashire moorland have been provided with new, rather unusual nesting areas to improve breeding success.

Gamekeepers in the Forest of Bowland have set up special nesting tubes for wild ducks to use to raise their chicks.

The nest tubes sit two feet off the ground on scaffold poles, and are aimed at enabling ducks to raise their young more safely to give them a better chance of survival, to try and turn round declining wild populations of mallards in the UK.

Charlotte Burch, of the Forest of Bowland Moorland Group, said: “With spring well and truly underway here on the moors in Bowland, our keepers have been giving nature a helping hand

"Duck tubes are fantastic for these ground-nesting birds, which often face disturbance such as trampling from livestock and aerial predation.

"This frequently results in the destruction of the nests before the eggs have a chance to hatch.

“Duck nest tubes are a great solution to this problem.

"By raising the nests off the ground and covering them from flying predators above, the chances of nest disturbance or destruction are considerably lower, resulting in increased brood sizes and hatching success.”

The nesting tubes are made of garden wire mesh packed with fresh hay, creating a cosy and sheltered position for nesting and for chicks to live until they are ready to fly the nest.

The project comes as mallard - while a widespread duck species in the UK - have seen their numbers falling over the last 10 years, and winter populations of the birds have been in decline for 40 years.

The Forest of Bowland is a 310-square-mile Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the Ribble Valley, while also traversing other parts of Lancashire and North Yorkshire, made up of moorland, areas of forest and farmland, and is a haven for wildlife, walkers and cyclists.