Fresh perspective on camouflage for free-ranging chickens

[BlindLemonChicken]

anything close to pure white gets color shifted pretty noticeably

That makes sense cause in real life this pullet is light gray but she is well camouflaged against the ground even in the green foliage.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

That makes sense cause in real life this pullet is light gray but she is well camouflaged against the ground even in the green foliage.

Yeah, I wish I could find a way to tweak it, but I think it's just an inherent flaw with these simulations. Silver duckwing is one of my favorite colors on hens, and depending on the environment I think they fit in quite well

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Sorry, I didn't see this! I've found a way to preserve the resolution a little bit better, but it still isn't as good as the originalView attachment 4223192View attachment 4223193View attachment 4223194
In this last image, the same issue that happened with @Perris 's pictures has presented itself; anything close to pure white gets color shifted pretty noticeably, often becoming more blue. I don't think this is actually how it appears to predators, I think it's a software issue

Huh, buffs are camouflaged a lot better than I had thought!

Does this seem correct, that predators don't see gree, but a straw color instead?

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

Huh, buffs are camouflaged a lot better than I had thought!

Does this seem correct, that predators don't see gree, but a straw color instead?

That's the main difference. Where we can see three primary colors (red, green, and blue) most mammals can only see two; red and green are indistinguishable to them. Whether they see it as that weird yellow is just our best guess, since we can't literally see things from their perspective, but we know that their only primary colors are that and blue.

However, hawks are birds, so just like chickens they see 4 primary colors (red, green, blue, and ultraviolet). In addition to seeing UV, they can likely tell red and green apart a bit better than us. This is because as mammals, we descended from an ancestor that only had two primary colors, and our "red and green" cones started diverging into "red" and "green" relatively recently on an evolutionary scale. It's a very interesting topic I could talk at length about, but suffice it to say that the ancestral tetrapod condition is having 4 cones, and that's true for most tetrapods except mammals. Since we only have 3 cones, it's a lot harder for us to understand how hawks see, because we literally lack the anatomy to perceive it

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

Also to add: in terms of color, buff orps blend in quite well, but half the battle in patterning, which they lack

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Huh, buffs are camouflaged a lot better than I had thought!

Also to add: in terms of color, buff orps blend in quite well, but half the battle in patterning, which they lack

Yes, this. I wouldn’t say any of my hens are buff exactly though I do have a light game hen. She has a lot of pattern. Her camouflage is better than I expected for sure. Here is a better picture of her. Maybe it’s buff but the pattern helps and moreso the general wariness

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

Yes, this. I wouldn’t say any of my hens are buff exactly though I do have a light game hen. She has a lot of pattern. Her camouflage is better than I expected for sure. Here is a better picture of her. Maybe it’s buff but the pattern helps and moreso the general wariness

View attachment 4223331

Looks like the dark brown gene? Or maybe quail. Either way she's very pretty

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Looks like the dark brown gene? Or maybe quail. Either way she's very pretty

I have no idea. These are my first game hens. I know she is a Leiper-Hatch but that’s about it. The brown one is the same breed.