After successfully defending her den from an aggressive intruder, Smiley Vixen (Vulpes Vulpes) is living it up in her new home. My trail camera captures her going in and out, and as always, whatever the angle, she always looks like she has a smile on her face. However her den keeps getting visited by other foxes. Among them was a sickly looking mangy fox, a bulkier male fox and it seems to me as though the same fox who previously attacked her revisited again, and barked at the den like before. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video of the attack, which Smiley Vixen successfully deflected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVSOTFQCM6E Here’s the first video of Smiley Vixen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQSraPloWic At the end of the trail cam footage compilation, there are also videos of some other animals who made their appearance at the Smiley Vixen’s den. Those include a Red Squirrel (Sciurus Vulgaris), some birds including a Common Chaffinch (Fringilla Coelebs) and a Blackbird (Turdus Merula), as well as a Roe Deer (Capreolus Capreolus). 00:00 Disclaimer 00:11 Smiley Vixen with snow on her nose 00:53 Smiley Vixen returns to her den in daylight 01:20 Mangy fox visits the den 02:14 Smiley Vixen in foggy weather 03:08 Another fox snoops around the den 05:05 Previous would-be intruder barks at the den 05:19 Different game camera placement 05:43 Red Squirrel (Sciurus Vulgaris) 05:53 Common Chaffinch (Fringilla Coelebs) 06:17 Common Blackbird (Turdus Merula) 06:31 Roe Deer (Capreolus Capreolus) Keep rocking :o) Mark https://www.nophoneman.com/

It was quite windy the other day, but I went to do my daily rounds in the woods anyway. Like I always do regardless of weather. On my latest walk, my attention was attracted by a small ground of the Scarce Swallowtail butterflies. The Scarce Swallowtails (Iphiclides Podalirius) are getting rarer and rarer, so I was happy to have come across some and tried to film them. However because of the wind, it was not easy at all. They kept feeding on and pollinating Field Thistle (Cirsium Arvense) exclusively. But these tall plants really swayed hard with the wind, which made it a challenge to get a decent shot of the Swallowtails. Yet, in spite of the wind, the butterflies kept pollinating seemingly undisturbed. Field Thistle are edible, but because like all Cirsium species they grow spines, they’re a bit of a pain to prepare for eating, so I usually don’t bother. But I am well aware of this wilderness survival food and remain ready to use it should a situation call for it. The Scarce Swallowtails demonstrated that they are a rewarding butterfly to photograph because they land on the flowers they pollinate with their wings open. This way a photographer can capture them in all their beauty. That is in stark contrast to other pretty butterflies, like the Common Blue (Polyommatus Icarus), whose males are gorgeous blue on the inside, but their flight pattern is difficult to follow with a camera and when they land, they close their wings, hiding the magnificent upperside. As is quite obvious, the Swallowtail get their name from their tail which is forked like the tail of the Swallows. I made a video about Barn Swallows before - take a look and compare the tails, hehe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl7NVAOZY40 While filming the Swallowtails in the wind, the creaking sound of a widowmaker from within the woods could be heard all the way from the meadow. Because I talked about it while filming the Swallowtails, after I finished videotaping them, I went into the woods to show you the widowmaker I spoke about. It’s an old Pine tree which was weakened by a wood rot and cracked at the root. As it was falling, it landed on a nearby Beech tree and has been leaning on it since. Because of its weight, when the Beech sways with the wind, the Pine’s trunk and branches rub against the Beech, causing the creaking sound that can be heard from far away. My camera automatically compensates for sound spikes, so the creaking in the recording doesn’t sound as loud as in real life. The same creaking can be heard in the video about the Slugs, a Dor Beetle and a Fire Salamander who came out after the rain. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq_pGVnriUQ Because in some parts of the video the wind was blowing directly into my camera’s microphone and I only have a cheap palmcam without wind-breakers, I put subtitles in the parts which may be more difficult to hear due to the wind blasting into the mic. I hope the video was helpful and educational for you, but please bear in mind that I’m not an expert and may be wrong about anything I say. Always do your own research and if you need an expert advice, do consult an actual expert. Please review my disclaimers at https://www.nophoneman.com/wild-edibles-disclaimer/ and https://www.nophoneman.com/medical-disclaimer/. 00:00 NPM Disclaimer 00:11 Scarce Swallowtail with one wing-tail broken 00:39 Swallowtails like to pollinate Field Thistle 00:55 Widowmaker creaks with the wind 01:29 Very windy day 01:53 Field Thistle is an edible plant, good survival food 02:46 Swallowtails pollinate flowers with wings open 03:10 The Common Blue (Polyommatus Icarus) 04:25 Introducing the widowmaker 05:45 Wind resumes, creaking restarts 06:25 Beech tree bark scratched from rubbing with the widowmaker 07:29 Closeups of old pine widowmaker 09:30 Wood on wood creaking Keep rocking :o) Mark https://www.nophoneman.com/

In this video I introduce the Common Snowdrop (Galanthus Nivalis) – a small plant which despite its size and seemingly delicate build, can withstand freezing temperatures and blooms before nature awakes from the winter sleep. The Common Snowdrop is a plant species from the genus Galanthus in the family Amaryllidaceae. It is the only naturally occurring snowdrop in Central Europe. The Snowdrop grows in compact colonies, in sites with moist soil and at least at half shadow and flowers in winter, many times in the snow, being one of the first plants to bloom in Europe. I hope the video was helpful and educational for you, but please bear in mind that I’m not an expert and may be wrong about anything I say. Always do your own research and if you need an expert advice, do consult an actual expert. Please review my disclaimers at https://www.nophoneman.com/wild-edibles-disclaimer/ and https://www.nophoneman.com/medical-disclaimer/. 00:00 Disclaimer 00:15 Introducing the Common Snowdrop 00:39 Early sign of Spring 00:49 Slavic mythology 00:59 Vesna, the Goddess of youth, spring and life 01:09 Morena, the Goddess of winter and death 01:19 Galanthus Nivalis 01:45 Common Snowdrop’s secret to surviving sub-zero temperatures 02:30 Snowdrop bulbs 02:49 Ants propagate Snowdrops 03:02 Snowdrops are poisonous 03:26 Galantamine – Snowdrop derived alkaloid with medicinal properties 03:37 Galantamine for relief from Alzhaimer’s and Parkinson’s disease 03:49 Galantamine – an approved drug in dozens of countries 03:59 Galantamine approved by US FDA for mild dementia 04:11 Harbinger of spring Keep rocking :o) Mark https://www.nophoneman.com/

The trail cam I have at the animal scratchpost has the best picture quality of all my trail cameras, but it has a very narrow field of view (FOV). That means the area the camera’s lens can capture is too narrow, so when a wild animal comes to use the scratchpost, oftentimes only parts of the animal are captured on video, and parts are cropped off. So I decided to move the camera on a tree that’s further away from the scratchpost in hopes that less of the animal bodies would be cropped off in videos. The other tree however grows under an angle and is thicker than the one I had the camera on so far. The camera strap was not long enough to easily strap the camera to the tree so I had to play around with it, but eventually got it done. The trail cam footage at the end of the video is a compilation of both before and after the move. The music used as background is my guitar solo to a rock’n’roll backing track. It was improvised live before a live audience and recorded as performed. Animal footage features Roe Deer (Capreolus Capreolus), Red Deer (Cervus Elaphus) and Wild Boars (Sus Scrofa). 00:00 Explaining the narrow FOV of the scratchpost trail camera 00:45 Trail cam moved to a more distant tree 01:26 Woodpecker Decker came to greet me at the scratchpost 01:50 Trail cam footage before camera move 05:12 Trail cam footage after camera move Keep rocking :o) Mark https://www.nophoneman.com/