color - animals - blue. What do animals see.

[Nashtims.]

I wear that blue “tubby” camo jacket when hunting. Why? It started off with one reason.....safety. Nothing to do with antelope. Safety from humans, so that THEY see me.

Then I found another reason. Comfort. That jacket keeps me warm in extreme cold and is very durable. When walking in some of the terrain that we hunt in I often see other hunters being jagged by thorns while nothing has ever pierced that jacket or even caught onto it.

But, on to the story I wanna tell. I was sitting under a tree glassing some springbok about a kilometer away when I heard the lightest of pitter patter. Instinctively I froze, binos still at my eyes I saw a group of bokkies, possibly twenty five or so, that had probably been spooked and had come to rest all around me. The closest was not more that three meters away. Here I was frozen with about ten of the group looking directly at me. The others had already started grazing.

After a while my arms started to tire and I slowly very slowly dropped my elbows to let the binos down on my knees. By now some of the guys that had been looking at me had gone back to grazing but others who had picked up on my movements started giving me that curious dead stare.

It was an amazing experience as I was completely surrounded by springbok who obviously knew there was something there but could not interpret what it was. After a long cat and mouse of stop start stop start I eventually managed to rest my arms on my knees.then I just sat. Still.

But, after a long while the inevitable happened. I won’t go as far as to call it Bokkoors but the tangible knowledge of possibly losing out on an opportunity kicked in. I gauged them to be completely comfortable and I slowly started to reach for my rifle.......one or a few must have picked up on the movement or heard a rustle, I don’t know, but they scattered.

So, you tell me what colors those animals saw that scared them off. Cos I don’t know. All I know is when I moved they immediately fixated on my location. While I sat there dead still in my blue camo jacket, they relaxed to a point where they grazed without any fear.


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[Skaaphaas]

Well I sat with a screaming bright orange shirt next to a farm road one day, and a duiker approached me also to within 5 meters, wondering what I was. I think it was more a factor of me sitting on a rock which was an unfamiliar shape to it, than a colour thing.

[Toxxyc]

So your argument is that if animals are used to skinny hunters and a fat one comes along, they'll come investigate?

[treeman]

Well I sat with a screaming bright orange shirt next to a farm road one day, and a duiker approached me also to within 5 meters, wondering what I was. I think it was more a factor of me sitting on a rock which was an unfamiliar shape to it, than a colour thing.

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Orange is one of the colors deer can not differentiate from other colors.
You correct about unfamiliar shape, and movement is more important than all other factors.
Reason for post was more for stalking and color that is not in harmony with surroundings will attract more attention than a color that blends in. Evidently the number of vision cones in a deers eye tend to group all colors by their area in the light spectrum and that into 3/4 groups of colors - greys, greens mainly even orange is viewed as grey green. Blue is a color that is seen as not grey green and not in the norm of there vision. Or so I understand the writings. So a grey green thing in a grey green world would be looked over much easier than a color outside that environmental norm.

[Patocazador]

Blue camo was a 'fashion statement' here in the States. It had nothing to do with hunting or animals' vision. It was just designed to sell garments like urban camo was. An old saying here is "fishing lures are designed to 'catch fishermen not fish'. Same thing with camo.

I have also read that blue is the worst color to wear when bugs are out. They are attracted to the wave lengths of shades of blue. Also dark colors are bad for insects. A neutral gray or light tan works best.

[Eliminator87]

Most trackers I hunted with wore blue overalls. Some even bright color hats.

[Zuku]

Irrespective what colour animals can see, wearing a camouflage pattern to brake up the shape does help. On my first bow hunt I was wearing the normal leafy suit (not full ghillie suit) with a face mask and gloves. I got to animals under 10 m. I once stalked 2 warthogs and got to about 15 m from them in an opening. There was no bushes around me to use as screen cover anymore as they have move mush faster. I was in the standing position with the bow in the wrong hand. I could change the bow to my shooting hand, remove an arrow from the quiver, nock the arrow, raise the bow and come to full draw, all with slow movements without alerting the animals, while the warthogs looked at me trying to determine if I was a danger or not. The warthogs was looking at me but because if the leafy suit breaking up my shape they could not determine what I was.

[treeman]

I have posted before that I once fell asleep with my 6/7 year old under a tree and awoke on my back in the shade with 2 bush buck neck outstretched at 3/4 paces sniffing my boots, Gavin o Riley the bow hunter tells same story with a W/Hog and Pre 64 with a B/Pig and a B/buck( his B/Buck attacked him though)

[Sean KZN]

I have also read that blue is the worst color to wear when bugs are out

Definite truth in that. If you are in a tsetse fly area blue or black will guarantee lots of attention.

The fly traps are blue for that reason.

[Messor]

Definite truth in that. If you are in a tsetse fly area blue or black will guarantee lots of attention.

The fly traps are blue for that reason.

Dark colors, blue, black, brown etc.

It's not the color itself, it's the same reason why you get a white bakkie and not a black one.
It's the heat, the dark colors absorb heat whiles light colors reflect it better.

Many insects have poor color vision but good heat detectors.