Thermal spotting rabbit at 80m... Through grass.

[cj7hawk]

I know the question is asked once in a while - how do you spot a rabbit in a field of grass...

Here's a short video of a rabbit being spotted on Thermal - distance approx 80m.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzwtFnKABg

Regards
David

[Dr G]

is this with your home made camera dave?

Dr G

[cj7hawk]

is this with your home made camera dave?

Dr G

Yes it is... The rabbit isn't that easy to notice from the video, but if you look at the gap between the trees, you can see a small glow. To me, it was easy to spot, but even with the extra IR and Gen3 night vision, we couldn't see it at first... So I kept checking thermal and back to NV and only when I got a little closer, did we spot them. There were actually three of them... We saw 6 rabbits all up that night - didn't get any but it's 6 I wouldn't have spotted without the thermals. Fortunately, rabbit ears show up well on thermal

The trees show up really well and I find the dry grass isn't that hard to see through, but it makes it hard for the Gen3.

We saw a heap of ducks too... But ducks are easier to see with Gen3 than thermal for some reason? Lots of baby ducks too.

Houses ( even several KMs away ) are easy to spot, as are vehicles whether used or not. Birds show up OK and trees are easy to see.

I have a little more electronic support gear to make so I get a better battery life ( about an hour straight at the moment ) so most of what I was doing was scanning around, plus the screen I was using was lighting me up like a christmas tree, so the rabbits probably saw me when I got within 50m.

David.

[The Raven]

BANG, I saw him first!

[Dr G]

Thanks David, well done on the thermal camera build. I recently tee'd up for some researchers working out this way on another project to come out looking for a problem cat with us. They have access to a fancy $40K+ thermal imaging unit for their work and i thought it would be the ducks nuts. Unfortunately the only night they were available I was out bush so Elmer Fudd kindly took my place (the bastard ). He was well impressed, though they didnt get the cat. In fact he wass that impressed he keeps telling me about how much I missed out

We saw a heap of ducks too... But ducks are easier to see with Gen3 than thermal for some reason? Lots of baby ducks too.

This is probably due to the high insulation factor duck feathers have. They are really efficient at trapping the heat close to their body and keeping it from leaching into the water.

Dr G

[cj7hawk]

I hadn't thought about the duck's natural thermal insulation. Good point. Actually, water makes things difficult because it holds a lot of thermal mass, but it doesn't emit much IR - however it does reflect it really well. So near the bank, it's very bright. As a result, I needed to get some height to see the ducks so they weren't lost in the thermal noise near the water's edge.

Though against the sky, all birds show up pretty well. They are hardest to spot when sitting on branches, though that might have been obvious from the video - the trees show up really well.

You just need to get some good kit yourself - 40K is too much though. Great stuff I'm sure ( probably cooled thermal ) but too much range is of no use unless you have a lot of height or are looking at the side of a hill or something, as too much bush will obscure things.

I find that animals are not really able to hide from me anymore - I'm just miffed that none of them were where I was shooting.

I guess all the technology in the world will not make up for the fact that I stalk my prey like an elephant walking on a field of mousetraps either...

David