After being hunted to extinction in England, Cumbria welcomed back a pair of beavers into Lowther Estate earlier in the year.

Since then the pair have nibbled their way through some large trees getting ready for winter and for that all important mating season.

The twosome have been working as a team and building up a shared food store for the winter months.

Glen the male and Dragonfly the female, have been released into a 27-acre enclosure at Lowther Estate near Penrith, for a five-year scientific trial.

The aim is to obtain data on the impact of beavers in an upland environment, in particular on a stream in a farmed landscape.

Dragonfly, was relocated from the River Tay catchment in Scotland, under licence from NatureScot, the public body responsible for Scotland's natural heritage.

She was then was held at Five Sisters Zoo in West Lothian, for health screening.

Glen, was rescued from the outflow of a hydroelectric plant in Perthshire by the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It’s thought that Glen became trapped while moving between areas, trying to establish his own territory. The SSPCA carried out health screening on Glen, before releasing him a week later at Lowther.

Excited that the pair are getting on well Heather Devey, Project officer for Cumbria Beaver Group said: "They have already built a dam, they have been busy preparing for winter. What they do is they fell larger trees in order to get to the softer branches at the top.Then they drag those into their pool and this acts as a winter larder especially in case the water freezes over. They have an underground access point.

"They have also been eating reeds as well as trees and grass.

"Both of them appear to be doing very well, we have footage of them dragging their stick along to reinforce their dams, They know when it starts to rain they need to reinforce their dam. They act as natural flood management even flood solutions by creating these dams.

"We're hoping through the University of Lancaster that we can show they do actually slow the flow of water through peak flood events."

A 1.2m-high secure fence surrounds the release site, which is a mixture of woodland and wet grassland on the private Lowther Estate in the Eden Valley. The fencing includes an anti-climb and a green weld mesh that goes into the stream bed, to stop the beavers burrowing under the fence at the water course.

Cumbria Beaver Group is a partnership made up of Cumbria Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Lowther Estate and Eden Rivers Trust. It is working in consultation with Natural England, the Environment Agency, United Utilities, Forestry England, the University of Cumbria and others. The group supports the well-planned and managed reintroduction of beavers to Cumbria through enclosed scientific beaver release trials.

Cumbria Beaver Group is working with communities and stakeholders to inspire people about beavers and increase understanding about this native species.

Lockdown has put a little spanner in the work for the project, as talks and visits were expected to take place, but Heather has managed to host these digitally with more 2000 people tuning in to take part and more than 30,000 people engaging with the project online.

She added: "It's defiantly the hope they mate, they're just like humans, some beavers get on and some don't but these two seem to get on well and are working as a team on the dam they cashing their food together.

"December is the start of their breeding cycle so if there was going to be any flirting going on it would be about now. We would possibly then expect kit in about May time."