Hi, I'm Rudi, i'm 8 years old and my favourite book is 'Tarka the Otter' by Henry Williamson. Its about the life of an otter named Tarka and British Wildlife. One night i was reading the book with my dad and i said that i wanted to see all the animals in the book, he said i should do it and call it the Tarka Challenge. My Tarka Challenge started on 1st January 2012. The book contains 89 birds, 54 land based animals, 120 plants and 56 aquatic organisms.

The rules are simple, i must either see each thing myself or photograph it using my trail camera. I will try and see each thing on my local patch (Ogmore River Catchment) but may need to look somewhere else in Britain.

Whimbrel

We went out for a walk with Glamorgan Bird Club on Saturday and saw a lot of birds (42 species). We were lucky enough to see 3 Whimbrel. We also had Swallows, Swifts and Sand Martins flying right over our heads which was awesome.

In the afternoon we went to Bryngarw Park and saw a Dipper and a noisy family of Nuthatch (2 parents and 3 fledglings). We also found some plants on the flood plain.

 Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

 Ivy leaved Water Crowfoot (Ranunculus hederaceus)

Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

Hairy Dragonfly (Brachytron pratense)

Male Fern (Dryopteris filix-mas


With the sun shining, the butterflies were out.

 We think this one is a Green Veined White (Pieris napi) Please tell us if we have got it wrong.


 Orange Tip (Anthocaris cardamines)


Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus)


A trip to the river with our fishing nets and we caught some bay trout.


Baby trout are also called 'Fry'

After a busy day we enjoyed a drink, chips and the view from a pub beer garden.


Ticked off the list were

Sand Martin
Whimbrel
Fry (Trout)
Water Crowfoot
Buttercups
Dragonfly
King Cups (Marsh Marigold)
Male Fern
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2 comments:

  1. David Carrington26 May 2012 at 11:50

    Great blog Rudi and quite a challenge! Glad you connected with whimbrel on the Kenfig walk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rudi28 May 2012 at 10:17

      Thanks David, and thanks for pointing the Whimbrel out to me.

      Delete

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