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.

Bank Holiday Walk

We went for a walk up the common and the first thing we saw was a horse scratching its bum on a barbed wire fence, it looked painful, he must have had a big itch.


We went looking for Lizards and eventually we found one, they are really difficult to see



We recorded the sightings on iSpot but my book must have been out of date because the scientific name i used was wrong. My book said it was called Lacerta vivipara but someone told me this had changed to Zootoca vivipara.

I also found some more bugs which i wasn't sure about and people on iSpot identified them for me.

Aphodius

Clausilia (Clausilia) bidentata

Silpha tristis

We had a break from bug hunting to have a picnic and so some rock climbing




After lunch we found this


Its a Green Tiger Beetle and it is a fast predator. The Tiger in its name doesn't come from its colour though it is named that because it is ferocious.

Lastly i crossed something off my list which i should have crossed off a long time ago because you can see it everywhere, you have probably got them in your garden.


Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

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