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.

Late Night Visitor

Late last night we had a 6 legged visitor tapping at our kitchen window, It was a chunky Cockchafer....


Cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha)
These are also called 'May Bugs' as they usually emerge in May. They are quite big and some people think they are cockroaches which they are not. They fly around at night and are attracted to light. This one was attracted to our kitchen light and kept flying into the window. When we released it we turned the light off so it would stop banging the window, the sound was quite load like someone tapping the glass.

Our local river usually dries up in the summer but because of all the rain it still had water in it so for the first day of our summer holidays we strapped our nets to our bikes and rode to the river for some stickleback fishing. There were lots about but we couldn't see and minnows.....







When we were riding home we saw a plant called Comfrey growing in a hedge



Comfrey (Synphytum officinale)
It likes to grow in damp areas. People used to grow it in their gardens and it was used to help heal wounds and mend broken bones. The flowers are shaped like little tubes and can be white, pink or violet.

Another 2 things off the list....

Comfrey
Cockchafer
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