A DUNFERMLINE garden centre is encouraging West Fifers to welcome the House Sparrow into their gardens.

Dobbies in the Fife Leisure Park are teaming up with the UK’s largest nature conservation charity, the RSPB, to educate its customers in Dunfermline on the declining house sparrow population.

During the month of May, RSPB volunteers will be raising awareness and collecting donations across a number of Dobbies’ stores while offering the opportunity to sign up to become an RSPB member.

As part of this campaign, Dobbies’ Dunfermline store will host a Little Seedlings Club workshop on Sunday, May 7.

Dobbies’ community and CSR communications executive, Chloe Bell, explained: “Our Little Seedlings Club attendees are the next generation of gardening enthusiasts and this awareness workshop with RSPB at our Dunfermline store is extremely important when it comes to helping rescue the house sparrow.

“I have fond memories as a child listening to the house sparrows as I watched them fly about the garden and we want the younger generation to experience this too.

"You can help these birds by planting trees, shrubs and flowers in the garden, a place for the house sparrow to take shelter, forage for insects to feed their chicks, and ultimately help increase the population.”

Customers looking to encourage house sparrows to visit their garden can pick up RSPB-branded supplies in store, including medium easy-clean seed feeders, sunflower hearts, high energy fat balls, table seed mix, suet sprinkles and highly nutritious mealworms.

Advance booking is required to secure a free spot at Dobbies’ May Little Seedlings Club session. For more information, visit www.dobbies.com/little-seedlings.