Thousands of people saw the ospreys on a special web cam

The Lake District Osprey Project at Bassenthwaite is among several schemes to share in the £200,000 grant.

The cash will be used to improve facilities at the site, which has proved a massive hit with the public.

The Lake District National Park and a pedestrianisation project for Keswick, are also due to benefit.

Part of the cash will go to creating a Lake District National Park Authority website which will highlight the issues and opportunities surrounding Windermere.

Nesting birds

The cash awards come as an unexpected addition to Defra's 2003/4 budget.

The Osprey project, which attracts thousands of visitors every year, has been one of Cumbria's biggest tourism success stories in the wake of the damaging foot-and-mouth outbreak.

In 2003 the project saw two chicks born to a nesting pair of Ospreys at Bassenthwaite, near Keswick.

Only one of the newborn birds survived.

A special web cam set up to monitor the nesting site, attracted tens of thousands of viewers.

The project is a partnership between The Forestry Commission, the Lake District National Park Authority and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).