DORSET Wildlife Trust highlights a species each month and June is the turn of the sparrow.

Community conservation officer Katie Wilkinson said the idea behind the scheme was to get people engaged with wildlife, to help map the health of species and

She said: “June is the house sparrow. We have a Facebook post for it and also on our website as a dedicated page.

“We ask people to look out for house sparrows in their local patch during the month of June and send us the record. They do that via our website and they just fill in a form, tll us where it is, how many they saw and most importantly where.

“Then that record we put on to Living Record which is a web-map based recording tool, which is designed to understand where wildlife is in the wider environment.

“We obviously survey our reserves but it interesting to know what is happening in urban and suburban habitats as well.”

She said it was also a really good way to engage people in having a look at the natural world around them.

She added: “We are trying to encourage to try an id things. There are tips on how you identify the sparrow, its behaviour and also we give tips on how people can encourage that species into their gardens, for instance.

“That is all on our dedicated web page.

“We try and do lots of things with this one scheme – the records, we want people to do something for wildlife and we want people to look for wildlife as well.”

The male sparrow has a grey cap and chest and a black throat, or ‘bib’ - just below the beak. The females are a paler brown with no black bib or grey crown but with a pale yellow eye stripe.

It is easy to get the males confused with the Tree sparrow however male Tree sparrowshave a white cheek with a black mark in the middle and a brown cap and are very rare in Dorset.

House sparrows are declining in England. Over the last 30 years they have declined by 77 per cent.

Sparrows nest in colonies often in buildings or holes in walls. They make their nest using leaves, grass, feathers even string or paper.

They nest between April and August and can lay between three to seven eggs and may have several broods in one year.

They feed on the ground mainly eating seeds, nuts and berries and insects such as aphids for their young.

To take part check out the dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk website