A GROUP of homeless birds are getting the chance to celebrate Valentine's Day in comfort this year.

Sand Martins living on the Millennium Ribble Link canal, at Savick Brook, Ashton, are having new 'love nests' built in time for their migration home from Africa soon.

The birds fly to Preston each year to raise their young but, over the last year, work on the canal has removed some of their traditional nesting sites. But now the feathered friends are set to move to new sandy nesting sites courtesy of Lancashire County Council and a string of environmental groups.

Jonathan Hart-Wood, British Waterways conservationist ecologist, said: "Sand Martins remain faithful to the same breeding site year after year. Amazingly they fly all the way to Africa and return to exactly the same spot to make their nests."

The historic Millennium Ribble Link is the first new canal to be built in England for more than a century and will stretch for around a mile when it is finished.

The £6 million waterway -- built by Lancashire County Council and groups such as the Ribble Link Trust, the Waterways Trust and British Waterways -- will connect Lancaster Canal to the River Ribble.

And, at every step of the way, a special environmental group has been on hand to protect the local wildlife. Sand Martins are an important species of bird, and their nesting even halted construction for two months last year.

The birds like to nest in colonies, so we are constructing several continuous strips of sand bank, which should encourage even more breeding pairs to make Ashton their summer home and breeding site."

Work on the new stretch of canal is set to finish this summer.