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.

Fathers Day

We took dad to Parc Slip nature reserve and bought him a coffee for fathers day. It was raining so we had a quick walk around and managed to see a new bird which is on my list (a Sedge Warbler) and see a Reed Warbler for the first time (not on the list though). Unfortunately we didn't get a photo of them but we did film the Reed Warbler warbling with our mobile phone. We also managed to tick off 2 plants as well.

This Bumblebee was hiding from the rain under the petal of a Yellow Flag
 

A meadow full of the purple flowers of Ragged Robin
 
The ragged flower of Ragged Robin

Standing in front of an small Oak Tree


Fungi

The Reed Warbler was singing away in the Reeds, its the first time i have seen one but its not on the Tarka list.

Off the list are -

Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus)
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/s/sedgewarbler/index.aspx

Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi)
This is a declining plant of damp places like marshes and wet meadows. They get the name from the raggedy petals on the flowers.

Oak (Quercus robur)
Everyone knows what an Oak Tree is and its seed the acorn but did you know that you can make a type of coffee from acorns? See http://foragedfoods.co.uk/how-to-make-acorn-coffee/
Oaks are also good for climbing. As they get older some Oaks become hollow and are good for hiding in like this one that me and my brother found -



Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. Bryher Bell18 June 2013 at 00:26

    Looks like a fun fathers day Rudi!What park did you go to? I might go there too to look at some of the birds this summer(Hopefully I won't get wet!!!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Freya15 October 2013 at 09:04

      Hi I live in scotland and have a blog here it is:

      mywildlifegarden.blogspot.com

      i hope you like it!

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)