Downhill disturbance
Avalanche and wildlife It’s hard to think long about mountain goats—especially here on the precipitous coast—without wondering how they deal…
2022 | Richard Carstensen | 3 minute slideshow
I’m a late-adopter of most technologies. Nearly 40 years old before my first camera; last among my friends to give in to email and cell phone. No different in the world of moving pictures. In education, I remember Clay Good’s dictum to his phone-wired highschoolers: stills, but no movies. In his experience, video viewing and making sucked kids into a subjective vortex. When instead, they backed into the ‘old-fashioned’ technology of still photos, a more observant mindset emerged.
That was at least a decade ago. Today (2018), the triumph of selfies has warped our teens’ relationship to stills. In the seesaw-&-wratchet of technology, anything we do too much of is dulling. The trick is to stay fresh—to keep searching for each tool’s noblest use—and to desist from pounding screws with hammers.
I was lured into video by drones—one technology I jumped into rather early. I just knew that watching forests and streams pass below from Raven-strafing level would be mesmerizing. Hard to imagine one could tire of that.
And then there’s motioncams. What a revelation—to learn what critters do when we’re not there! For me, video is currently a spice. Not the main course, but a tasty complement to more and more of my documentary efforts. Some of the older vimeo-posts linked below are composed strictly of still images, assembled into narrated slideshows, but using pan and zoom for some of the features we associate with “moving pictures.”
Oh yeah, and speaking of the rapidity of technological change, it’s already pretty amusing—that ‘poster’ for my 2015 video below called New technologies for old naturalists. The drone in that photo already looks about as “new” as a Model-T Ford.
In this section
Autumn Goatlandia
Rainforest rut Last fall I described elements of rutting season in mountain goats, but did not attempt a comprehensive review.…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 9 minute slideshow
Cusp of summer and fall
Insights from tele-views of Jánwu What an amazing place we live in! From afar, scoping in valley bottom, or up…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 7 minute slideshow
First encounters
Áak’w & T’aaḵú country in 1794 Back in 2010, when first collaborating with Goldbelt Heritage, I began to mine the archives…
2011 updated 2021 | Richard Carstensen | 36-minute slideshow
Dust-bath grouse&goats
Hooters & janwú at 80 degrees On an afternoon hike to Granite Basin, got another chance to test the new…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 90 second slideshow
Pocket wildlands: forests and ponds of Áak’w Táak
Fifty friends on backloop moraines On a sunny July 17th, 2021, Discovery Southeast and the Southeast Alaska Land Trust hosted…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 8 minute slideshow
Roads of ‘Northeast Chich’
Slideshows: Xunaa Káawu Each summer, I try to get over to Hoonah to help my wife Cathy with her research…
2021: 2019 | Richard Carstensen | Slideshows, 8- & 4 minutes
Roads of Xunaa Káawu
Impacts and opportunities: logging roads of Northeast Chichagof Visits to Hoonah rank among the highlights of my year. Especially so…
Finishing the winter-range story
Mid-May, 2021 Mountain goats are leaving the forested cliffs where they took refuge through much of the winter, and moving…
Final month on goat winter range
Follow-up to the 108-days show Back in April, 2021, Steve Merli and I posted a 12-minute slideshow called 108 days…
2021 | Richard Carstensen & Steve Merli | 9-minute slideshow
Wetlands Month features Mendenhall Wetlands
Frontyard wetlands in StoryMaps Every May is American Wetlands Month, and this year, it’s especially interesting for residents of Áak’w…
American Wetlands Month features Taashuyee
Our frontyard wetlands in StoryMaps For several years I’ve been wanting to dive into ArcGIS StoryMaps, cartography for one and…
2021 | USFWS | ArcGIS StoryMap
Northbound through Áak’w Aaní
Zonotrichia passage through the Highlands May 3rd, 2022. Golden-&-white-crowned sparrows are flooding through our neighborhood’s garden rows and brush borders.…
2021&22 | Richard Carstensen | short captioned videos
108 days on mountain goat winter range
Motion-detector camera at 1,200 feet On December 12th, 2020, Steve Merli and I placed a game-cam in mountain goat winter…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 12-minute slideshow
Dzisk’w liu kaadi: little owl snowslide
Avalanches in Goatlandia Yesterday (20210304), avalanches were triggered above the Thane Road runout on Snowslide Creek. Several folks posted impressive…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 80-second slideshow
Goats on Eyecliff
Cliff-base foraging February 7th When fresh, chest-high snow lies deep on Nettleslide, Jánwu mostly forages under conifer forest, unobservable. But…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 1-minute video
Heron roost
Yardbirds Over the 44 years I’ve lived in Southeast Alaska, behavior of two once-wary species has changed remarkably—probably due to…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 60 second video
New years Jánwu party at Centergrove
More the merrier Our coastal goats—since October anyway—have been hanging out in pretty small, compatible groups, dispersed all over Goatlandia…
2021 | Richard Carstensen | 4 minute slideshow
Discovery at Nugget Falls
Goat-watch at Áak’w Kwáan Sít’i (Áak’w people’s glacier) 20201203: Every other Friday, Discovery staff get together for a ‘distanced’ outing.…
2020 | Richard Carstensen | 2 page journal
Mountain goat rut
More general description of the mountain goat can be found on the category page: nature>critters>mammals>hooved>mountain-goat Few people have observed the…
2020 | Richard Carstensen | 30-second video