Bird lovers in Clydebank are being urged not to feed bread to ducks.

Instead, people should consider alternatives, including oats, peas or even lettuce.

An RSPB Scotland spokeswoman said: “It’s great that people want to help their local ducks by feeding them.

“Bread is only really suitable for ducks as part of a balanced diet.

“Large quantities of such refined processed food is not good for them.

“Due to the lack of nutritional value, it can fill the ducks up so they don’t forage naturally for food and therefore don’t get the variety they need to stay healthy.

“Of course it can be hard to judge how much bread ducks are being fed by other people, and so we’d advise it’s better to feed them other food instead.

“There are much better foods that people can feed to ducks such as oats, lettuce and peas, so we’d encourage people to feed food such as this to them.”

The advice came as giant plastic ducks were placed on a Glasgow pond in an eye-catching move in a bid to deter people from feeding the birds.

The large fake birds on the biggest pond in city’s Queen's Park are emblazoned with the words “Please don’t feed me bread,” in the hope of getting the message across.