• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Has anyone tried birding using extreme camouflague? (1 Viewer)

shiphen

Active member
Hello

I would love to hear from anyone who has tried doing birdwatching from extreme/"photographic" quality camouflage or even 3D "oversuits".

e.g. This sort of thing:
"SwedTeam Leaf Camo Poncho"
http://www.bushwear.co.uk/clothing/camouflage-oversuits/swedteam-leaf-camo-poncho.html

They would be a pain to move around in but my guess is that they would get amazing results if you stayed still for any length of time in one.

J
 

Attachments

  • delme-oversuit.jpg
    delme-oversuit.jpg
    298 KB · Views: 171
Hi All: I do observation of a bald eagles nest at 33M range (by triangulation), on a cliff slightly above the nest, so I am able to use the cliff as a hide, next to the bole of a spruce tree.

I just use low profile clothing, gray, green, brown, and cover up the hi-vis parts of my bike gear.

Because of the cliff only my head and top of bino+tripod are visible from the nest, so I use bike inner tube rubber bands on the tripod (black matt spray-painted) + binos to attach dead evergreen branches.

I pull a camouflaged (US Marpat) stuff sac on top of my balaclava, so it breaks up the outline of my head.

I have switched to dull plastic water bottles, and keep bright stuff inside another big (US ACU pattern) stuff sack.

My foam sitz pad is grey.

I am 75% covered by overhanging evergreen boughs, but I did buy some MARPAT pattern nylon scrim mesh net, which is clothes-pegged (olive spray paint on the pegs!) to the branches.

I use the scrim net as I do not want to spook the parent Eagles as they roost around the nest, or swoop in to feed the eaglets, it sort of fills in the gaps between the boughs.

Much of this takes place at -10C to +15C, so cold enough that I use a Norwegian Fjellduken sleeping-bag-poncho-tarp in a lichen-covered-rock pattern to stay warm over the hours.

Other locals don't bother with all this, but the locals also drove the last pair of eagles off of a more-publicly accessible nest site....

I don't want to be blamed for that!

Oddly enough, the eagles don't seem to feed their young when obvious people are around the nest....

I bike into the site, then hide the bicycle under a tree, with all its hi-vis bits tucked away.

I approach the hide site using the lip of the cliff as cover, then scoot under the branches of the tree to set up the hide.

So, if you use the terrain well, exploit cliffs or folds in the land, are able to stay in place for multiple hours, then dull clothing and equipment will probably do. Scrim net is now in nylon, dries quickly, packs very small, and is low cost. But you have to use natural cover first...

If you wander around full upright, in plain sight of what you are observing, even a Ghillie suit won't be much help!
 
Hi eaglesnestviews,

this sounds like a great birding experience - thanks for sharing the details! Do you take pictures - I sure would love to see some! When googling I just find references to certain dark parts of german history.

Joachim
 
Joachim: Yes, the best materials come from warfare, but camouflage can be used to minimize human disruption of animals. Just doing the basics of using the land to hide yourself, having no shiny equipment, staying still, that gets you to be less disruptive. Sun at your back, cover in front of you and behind you, staying in the shadows, earth tone clothing and equipment, is already doing a lot. Enjoy the views!
 
Hi eaglesnestviews,

this was a misunderstanding, I think - I googled your user name hoping to find some pictures but unfortunately the term eagles nest is used for a certain location near Berchtesgaden in southern germany where Hitler had a villa and spent a lot of time and I only found references to that...

But now back to birds and the correct attire when watching...

Joachim
 
Joachim: If you change your Google search language to English, "Bald Eagle Nest images" should give you lots of nest images much better than I have been able to take a photograph of!
 
Warning! This thread is more than 8 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top