The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has shipped in state-of-the-art machinery from the US to do the digging.

The project is being started at Otmoor Nature Reserve, Beckley in Oxfordshire on Thursday.

The £40,000 laser-guided rotary ditching machine is10 times faster than existing machines and will create wet grassland with ditches and watery scrapes ideal for wading birds.

The RSPB's aim is to put back some of the magical places where families can enjoy wildlife spectacles

Neil Lambert, RSPB

The RSPB believes declining species such as lapwings, snipe, redshanks, curlews and yellow wagtails will all benefit.

Otmoor Nature Reserve is the machine's first stop, followed by the Ouse Washes in East Anglia.

Other conservation partners could use the new machine in future across the UK.

Neil Lambert, RSPB Otmoor Nature Reserve site manager, said: "The RSPB's aim is to put back some of the magical places where families can enjoy wildlife spectacles.

"This machine makes our vision of large-scale creation of havens for bird life and people a reality."