CAMOUFLAGE IN BIRDING

The word camouflage is synonymous with the art of making oneself blend in with the environment especially in the military. Snipers use it to get close to their targets without being spotted by the enemy. The same goes for hunters who like to shoot birds with their rifles. As a matter of fact the word 'sniper' originated from the act of British hunters who like to hunt for a bird species called Snipe in India. They were called Snipers.

Now the question we want to ask is is the art of camouflaging oneself is important in birding? Well it depends on how close do you plan to be to the birds or what kind of equipments you are using to get that perfect shot of the birds. Another factor is what kind of birds are you stalking.

Some experts say that no matter how powerful your telephoto or zoom lens are, getting yourselves as close as possible to the birds is the key to getting very sharp shots. This true because if we keep on relying on the far end of our telephoto or zoom lens the images that we get are usually soft especially if we do not use the tripod. This is due to the vibration being magnified many times for long lens which will cause blur. Long zoom lenses suffer at the far end as the image quality starts to drop when the light available becoming less due to smaller aperture available. The only lens that will do well are the prime telephoto lenses with the focal length of 500mm upwards.

Now, the long telephoto prime lenses with the focal length of 500mm upwards will create another issue - the huge size like a bazooka! If you use the Canon system that will mean a long and big white lens, the 'L' series with a length of between 400 to maybe 600mm with hood! It will be visible from at least a kilometer away if you look through the eagle eyes! Now ask yourself if you were an eagle perching on a tree branch, would you be scared if you saw a man carrying a big white bazooka suddenly appearing in the bush 50 meters away and pointing that thing at you? Definitely you would freak out and fly away, i know i would. 

Of course there are some birds which are used to the human presence could not be bothered at all if someone want to take their photos from 20 meters away, while some would fly away at the first instance of seeing humans approaching. I encountered a species called Greater Coucal in the state of Perlis which was so hard to photograph. No matter how careful and quite my approach to shoot them they kept flying away the minute they saw me from 50 meters away. They are known to be very shy. On the other hand, species like Sliver-eared Mesia, Spectacled Laughing Thrush, Sunbirds, Long-tailed Sibia, Magpie and Spiderhunters can be photographed from three meters away or even less without any hiding required!

So how do you get close to the birds to get that perfect shots without spooking them? The answer is camouflaging yourselves and your equipments to become less visible to the birds.

Now there are so many ways of doing this. The first thing to do is to blend in with the environment that you are in either by using the same color of your surrounding or texture. If you are in a grassy surrounding, using some of the grass and put them on your hat or jacket can help break your profile and reduce visibility.  Your shirt and jacket color should be close to the grass color while you can use some colored wax on your face like the army do. Some use a camouflage hide or tent for an extended stay where the species they are after are known to be there. The camera with the long telephoto would be fixed on a tripod behind a see-through curtain inside the hide on standby. Some even use this hide technique in their backyard to shoot birds in their garden. Those who do not use a hide should also try to make the long lenses disappear by using some camouflage neoprene lens jacket available on the internet. These jackets come in various patterns and colors and also act as  a protection against knocks and scratches while in the fields. I bought two sets of neoprene jackets for my Sigma 150-500mm zoom lens and Canon EF400 f5.6 telephoto prime lens for about UK66 pound. They are about 4mm thick, stretchable and easy to put on the lenses. They also can add a bit more protection for your lenses against rain in the fields. If you do not want to spend money on this you should get black colored lenses instead which are less visible than the Canon series.

Non - camouflaged Sigma 15-500mm lens

                                    

Camouflaged Sigma 15-500mm lens

Non-camouflaged Canon EF400mm lens

Camouflaged Canon EF400mm lens

I am slowly buying camouflage shirts, pants, hats and lens jackets so i can have more success getting close to those species which are extremely shy and sensitive to human presence in order to get that perfect shots that i dream of. Of course having a prime telephoto lenses also helps a lot since i do not have to creep so close to the birds.