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.

Wildlife Trust Group Field trip

We went on a field trip yesterday with the Wildlife Trust to a farm in West Wales. We had a bird spotting competition on the way in the car and managed to spot 20 different species. We had a really good day out and saw some very interesting things. It was fun eating our lunch in a barn on a bale of hay.

The sheep didn't mind the rain

We had fun catching grasshoppers

This is a Butterfly Orchid which is a rare plant

We have seen this plant before, its Butterwort which traps insects and feeds off them like a venus fly trap. If you look closely you can see its victims stuck to the leaf.

A nestbox with 11 baby blue tits about to fledge

An Azure Dragonfly sheltering from the rain

Chrysalis of a Burnet Moth

Caterpiller of a Burnet Moth

This cool beetle looks like a jewel and is called Gastrophysa viridula, its a leaf beetle.

You can tell its a female because its abdomen is swollen with eggs.

Tuna sarnies in the Barn

The farm had some lovely woods with a river running through it.

Mossy banks in the river gorge.
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