MORE than 400 homes in the Bentham area found themselves without electricity - after a bird flew into power lines.

Nine homes on Ravens Brow Close lost power initially after the bird strike, and electricity board engineers had to remove it from a further 405 houses for about 90 minutes to carry out safety work.

Firefighters from Bentham were called out on Friday after a high voltage cable was reported to be 'arcing' near a solar power farm.

They helped electricity board engineers to isolate the power for the work to be carried out.

A tweet from North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service said the cause of the problem was a 'goose, which was cooked'.

A spokeswoman for Electricity North West, said: “A fault on our overhead power lines caused by a bird strike near Bentham resulted in the loss of power to initially nine customers in the area.

“Our engineers quickly arrived on site and in order to safely complete repairs removed supplies to a further 405 customers at noon. Power was restored to the majority of customers by 1.30pm with the remaining 14 customers restored at 7pm.

“Power outages caused by birds strikes are rare and we work hard to monitor the network and install bird diverters on our overhead power lines if they are located in known flight paths.

“If customers experience any issues with their power then we are on hand 24/7 on the new national number 105 or on Twitter @ElectricityNW.”