A RARE white sparrow has been photographed by a wildlife enthusiast near Dorchester.

Gardener Trevor Toogood has taken an interest in birds and wildlife all of his life.

But he said he has never seen anything like this pale sparrow before and felt compelled to capture images of it.

Trevor, 51, who works at Kingston Russell House, at Long Bredy, said: “I was making dinner one evening and saw this bird out in the garden.

“I thought it was a pale canary that might have escaped at first but then I realised it was a sparrow. It had the same characteristics and hops about like they do.

“I called my wife Liz out to have a look at it and tried to take a picture but it didn’t come out too well. I was eventually able to get these.”

He added: “I’ve lived around here all my life and I’ve always been interested in wildlife because I’ve always worked outdoors, but I’ve never seen anything like this bird before.

“He or she seems to be quite a strong little thing and it still holds its own against the other dark sparrows that come into the garden to feed.

“My only concern is that because it’s white it could attract predators because it stands out.”

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ reserves manager for Weymouth, Nick Tomlinson, said the sparrow was not an albino but was still rare and suffered from a condition called leucism.

He said: “I’m not positive that this bird is albino because its eyes are not pink.

“It looks as if the bird has a severe case of leucism, which reduces all of an animals’ skin pigmentation except in the eyes and is still quite rare.”

He added: “The reason sparrows are dark is to help them stay relatively inconspicuous but this white one might well attract more predators than others of its species.

“Sometimes, when people see these kinds of birds out in the wild, they assume that they must be exotic but, as this shows, they can be a native species.”