East-Heart decomposure
Metamorphosis of roadkill on a threatened peatland My last slideshow on Taashuyee-Chookan.aani (M-word Wetlands) was inspired by the first northbound…
2024 | Richard Carstensen | 16-minute slideshow
When we’re not there
I got into motion cameras in 2015 while staying with my father in Rochester New York. It was displacement-activity, actually, out of frustration on learning that my childhood wilderness was actually just inside the 5-mile no-fly radius of Rochester Airport. So much for crow’s-eye perspectives!
Instead, I adopted owl’s-eye perspectives, perched low on treetrunks in the land of coons and white-tails. What a revelation! Within a week, I had face-to-face video of a turkey tom who fell in love with the shiny lens cover of my Bushnell Aggressor. (couldn’t find any models with more peace-nik branding). I learned more about deer than a decade of direct observation could have taught me. One stormy night, I even filmed a coyote, confirming that some of those hairy turds had indeed been too large for fox.
Back in Alaska, I refocused on Sitka black-tailed deer. Steve Merli and I are using motion cams to study elevational movements up and down the mountainside, as seasons pass and hormones fluctuate. In February, 2018, I put together a talk with my friends Bob Armstrong and Hank Lentfer, summarizing what we’d learned from our very different experiences with these new tools. Link is below.
One question addressed early in this program was pretty basic. What should we even call these devices? Trail cams? Game cams? Critter cams? None of these really work for me. I’ve settled on motion cams for now.
In this section
A puzzle solved (and a calendar)
T’aawáḵ dísi ● when geese fly & call (January) Best wishes for 2024! I noticed on the trail, this January…
Winter-billy range (and a calendar)
Where do mature males go when rut has ended? Soon after we began near-daily observations of mountain goats in autumn,…
2024 | Richard Carstensen | 12 minute slideshow
Goatlandia: early winter 2023
Motioncam at 600 feet In mid-December, 2022, 9 of us Discovery naturalists bushwhacked up into mountain goat winter range to…
2023 | Richard Carstensen | 3 minute slideshow
Happy ‘goating’ in 2022!
Wrapping up the 2021 Jánwu journal January 1st, 2022: Most radio commentators appear quite ready to bid good riddance to…
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
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
Birds, beavers & Bob
Hands-off Seaweek At Discovery we offer hands-on activities in nature. So it’s been tough on us as well as the…
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
Armstrong guide to remote cameras
Tips and tools from a versatile naturalist-photographer My buddy Bob Armstrong has experimented with a broad range of cameras for…
2020 | Bob Armstrong | 43 pages
Decomposition on motion-cams: phases 3&4
Deer cemeteries on Sayéik, spirit helper (Douglas Island) Back in mid-May, I reported on a motion-camera study Steve Merli and…
July, 2020 | Richard Carstensen | 9 minute slideshow
Decomposition on motion-cams: phases 1&2
How a deer dissolves Steve Merli and I have slightly refocused our motion-cam deer study from behavior of live deer…
2020, May | Richard Carstensen | 6 minute slideshow
Junco life history
Lentfer audio-visual dark-eyes My friend Hank (Henry) Lentfer is using a combination of high-quality sound recording and high-res remote-control telephotography…
2020 | Hank Lentfer | 4 minutes
Hank Lentfer motion camera
In February, 2018, Hank Lentfer, Bob Armstrong and I gave a talk for the Alaska Wildlife Alliance on what I’ve…
When we’re not there
Studying wildlife with trail cams. Special emphasis on deer. Presentation to the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Juneau chapter, Feb 2018. This…
Feb, 2018 | Richard Carstensen | 21 minutes
Kaxdigoowu Héen: Three days on clear water
In 2013 I participated in a 3 day teacher’s conference called STREAM: a Pedagogy of Place. During this “place-based” conference…
2013 | Richard Carstensen | 7 pages