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.

Back to school and very tired

Last week was half term and we had a busy week. We were out and about a lot, i didnt get any new ticks for my tarka list but i did see some new species, meet my MP and the first minister for Wales, appear in the South Wales Echo (newspaper) and do a quick live radio interview on Radio Wales.

We went for a huge walk at Kenfig dunes and saw (i.d.'s from ispot)

Green Winged Orchid

Small Blue Butterfly

Me and my brother looking for interesting things

Panagaeus bipustulatus

and we had to do some dune jumping while we were there.

We visited Parc Slip nature reserve a few times and spotted....

A Dingy Skipper

Large Red Damselfly

Harlequin Ladybird (an invader that eats native ladybirds)

A green veined white

And a dragon fly nymph


A froghopper

A Poplar Leaf Beetle

And a sparkling Mallard

We walked up a mountain.

At the start


Lost in the middle of a bog

Secret mountain lake

We rested sitting on this sandy beach


There was not a lot of wildlife up the mountain but we did see

A Red Kite

A Dor Beetle

Carabus nemoralis

A poo or pellet full of beetle wings

Staphylinus erythropterus

after the walk we had a nice drink in the pub (the beers are my parents, we had tango)

 
And then we camped out and Dad cooked my favourite curry for tea.


Around and about we saw

A jackdaw eating some bacon rind from my sandwich

Southern Marsh Orchid

Donacia

Drinker Caterpillar

I think that about sums it up.
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