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.

Summer of 2013 - Part 2

Just realised that not all of out photos uploaded so here's part 2.........

Chips for table 24!!!
 
I came home from school on Thursday to find a pot on my doorstep with this dead dragonfly in it, I don't know who left it but I identified it as a male Southern Hawker

A large Parasol mushroom

The Comma I found in my bathroom



A Small Copper (from above)

A Small Copper (side view)

A Wall Brown

A Holly Blue

A refreshing bottle of Tarka mineral water

A Harvetsman with some red mites on its back

Sunflowers on the heritage coast

Froglets in my garden



A common lizard

A Cuttlefish at Anglessey aquarium

A Common Blue

A warty Toad

An Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar eating Himalayan Balsam

This is the inside of a Bass's moth, my uncle caught this when fishing in the sea



A Chanterelle mushroom, very tasty



Found this in the garden, its the fattest frog I've ever seen

Another Common Blue

A cool Hoverfly

Another Common Blue


Close up of a butterfly's eye
A Ringlet

The bug hotel we helped to make at Parc Slip

A Sea Slater, this thing was huge

Lenny the Blenny






A Brimstone Moth

A butterfly larvae

A thick thighed flower beetle

A wooly thistle growing on the coast

The glowing abdomen of a Glow worm

A grasshopper on the side of my house


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Summer of 2013

Well I know its been a while but I have been out and about all summer enjoying myself and i'm only 10!

Anyway I thought I would post our photos from the summer to show you what i've been up to so here we go................



Me, my brother and Dad spent 6 weeks studying our local Glow worm population. I will be making a short film about this for our local wildlife groups Christmas meeting so I will post the film here when its done so you can learn more about these cool bugs.

We live near the beach so I spent a lot of time down there rummaging about in rock pools looking for interesting things like Hermit Crabs

Its hard work looking for interesting things so sometimes you have just got to relax

Glamorgan Heritage Coast where we watched the Choughs throughout the summer

You don't have to go far to see nature, frog in my garden pond

A male and female Glow worms

A mackerel I caught whilst fishing with my Grandad

Lesser Bur-reed

My Grandad found a cocoon in his garden which he gave to me and I hatched it out into this huge Oak Eggar moth and then set him free into the night


Lenny the Blenny

The Beach

Even had time for a bit of surfing at the Gower

I went on holiday to North Wales, here I am getting my first ever views of Ospreys

At Gelerts grave in Beddgelert

Otters are frequent visitors to this pool but unfortunately, not when I was looking for them

Check out the camouflage on this moth, see below for a close up


Chicken of the woods fungus in North Wales

Beefsteak Fungus


Wolf Fish at Anglessey aquarium

Anenome


Watching Bass, mullet and sharks at the aquarium
Waiting for the tide to drop so we can go for a swim

A spot of climbing in trees is good fun

A quick visit to South Stack nature reserve but the Choughs were not about

The heather was alive with insects

A magpie moth in the country lane

I felt bad about catching these prawns in the rock pools but they tasted sooooo good

A chaser at Parc Slip Nature Reserve

A close up of a common darter

Fox moth caterpillar on the heritage coast

Chilling in the woods
 

Chilling in a rock pool


We found this dead trout in a river which had been dry all summer and have no idea how it got there, weird

This is my new pet lizard that I had for my birthday


I spent all summer trying to see a Comma butterfly then I was brushing my teeth one night and this one flew straight past me and landed on the edge of the bathroom sink
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