Green light.

[riverliver123 30]

Hi. I shoot rabbits at night with a 177.  Use a torch fitted to the scope. Trouble is the white light scares them off easily. Does anyone know how rabbits react to green light? I know certain animals can't see it. What about rabbits? 

[airbourne 128]

Red, green, Amber I have used them all my favourite was red, but only use NV now and a thermal spotter 

[Meece 1,957]

Years ago i bought a pack of plastic coloured filters to experiment with.  Like you I  strted small.  There weren't any sort of it night vision available. I tried a headlight off of a Honda 50 and a ¥@$% !!!!! Lead acid motorbike battery.!!!  The beam was non existent.   I then went to a Hitachi torch powered by 4x rechargeable  D cells. this had a pencil beam.  I tried  all the colours... red, Orange, blue/mauve, GREEN  the red and Orange were by far the best.  The Blue and green were dim and a bit disorienting.   The secret is to only use the light sparingly.  White is the best because some animals are quite used to white light which doesn't harm them such a light from cars and houses, AND it is better to understand distance and the target.  If you keep the light on all of the time it won't be long before they associate any colour as DANGER.  This is why you get lamp shy foxes. Learn your distances.  Pace out known things like a gate post to a tree ect, etc.  AND the most important thing which is one shot one kill.  Don't create educated targets. Light on,  a very quick look round...... identify target, distance and ground.   Go dark and stand still and quietly for a minute or two.  Walk dark towards the target.... stop and wait for a while.... re.illuminate and move to firing distance.  Bearing in mind the wind and any background light that will show you as a silhouette. Only lamp  10% of the time that you are out.

Ps.  I note that you state that you have the torch taped to the scope. This is very restrictive and basically you are pointing a weapon at things you don't intend to shoot. This isn't good practice with a loaded weapon especially if you have a mate and he keeps pointing his loaded weapon at you.  Try to hold the torch/lamp in the hand that holds the fore end. It takes a bit of practise but it allows you to keep the muzzle pointed at the ground instead of all over the place and you can scan the field rapidly for targets and to switch the torch on and off quickly.  By holding it under the barrel line you don't get flair back from moisture in the air.  Everything is quicker, safer, better sight picture and just all over better.  Try it. 

Pps.  Don't light the target up directly.  Keep the beam on the ground below the eyes.  They don't spook so much.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Meece

[riverliver123 30]

Thankyou. Very helpful. 

[The one 8,463]

I had four deben lamps with red , amber ,green and blue filters on them and i used to do a lap of my work (a campus with 500 odd acres ) with red then a lap with amber and then green and blue .i don't know if it was the time scale roughly 30 minutes a lap  or changing the colours that let them settle down and come out again . But as said red and amber where no problem i struggled to see them in the green till they moved and the blue was eerie we always made good bags but never quite hit 100 which i aimed to do often hitting high 80's and 90 . But i learned about a couple of weeks before i fancied shooting i would shine my torch on a rabbit and they would bolt but after a week or so they would sit still like they where used to it and knew it meant no danger then we would lamp them often my son could get 2 out 3 or 4out 5 groups 

[smithie 2,443]

For me red is better than bothe green and white, green is better than white and white is better than staying home...

[Meece 1,957]

After many trials of lots of different colours I  still come back to white.  The reason is that it illuminates the target better/more.  White light is more common at night than any other colour. House /buildings, town/street lights,  car/vehicles.  The trick is to use it sparingly. when you find a target  DON'T KEEP LOOKING AT IT.  SHUT THE LIGHT OFF ..... QUICK.  You know the lay of your land..... or you should do.  As soon as you know that your on you should be thinking of which way the wind is going and whether you can move reasonably quickly to a down wind position which will allow distance to close and you not get winded.  The next thing is to understand backgrounding, so that you have some cover behind you so that you don't get skylines like a moving silhouette.   A quick sweep with the light to check the target . Light off/ setup/ light flick on......l identify target / confirm and boom.  Then keep light on to track target if it has moved and another sweep to see if there are other targets.  Light off

[riverliver123 30]

Very useful. Thankyou