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.

Bullfinch



We have not had many birds in our garden recently because a cat has been scaring them away. I was looking out this morning and saw this fat Bullfinch, the first time ive ever seen one in our garden.

Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula)
This is one of the prettiest garden birds, i really like them. They mainly eat plant shoots and buds.

Oystercatchers



Well, we went looking for a Snow Bunting but didnt find one, we did see lots of Oystercatchers though which i really like, and a nice sunset.

Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus)
Even though they are called oystercatchers, they do not eat oysters. They mainly eat cockles and mussels. An oystercatcher can eat up to 500 cockles a day!

Top 10 Spots



Well i have had a really busy year and i have seen loads of wildlife. I was supposed to try to see everything in one year but there's still a lot of wildlife left to see. I had a really nice email from the Henry Williamson Society (http://www.henrywilliamson.co.uk/), Henry Williamson wrote the book and they said he would have been impressed with my challenge. I have decided to keep on going and carry on looking for wildlife from the book.

The short film above is about my own favourite top ten spots from my adventures this year. I made it to show at my local Wildlife Trusts members evening. If your not a member of the Wildlife Trust, please join and help British Wildlife - www.welshwildlife.org/

I'm off now on a hunt for my first ever Snow Bunting!

Merry Christmas Everyone.