Wildlife Watching in Australia

The camera was purchased with my own funds and I have received no financial benefits from this review. As part of my blog I would declare if I have been supplied with equipment on the basis for providing a fair review.

For quite some time I have been dreaming of a thermal camera and reading (a little jealously at times) accounts of people using them to find mammals. I was recently very fortunate to be in the position to purchase one! I had initially thought of going for a Pulsar, like many in the mammal watching community, but I contacted Night Vision Australia and they recommended I look at the Wolfcub series of thermal monoculars. Once I explained the way I would be using it, they said that whilst the Pulsar would work, they recommended the Wolfcub for its wider viewing angle – which allows location of mammals without as much scanning.

I wasn’t able to find any reviews on them for Australian conditions and animals, but worked out that they were rebranded Hikvision thermal monocular scopes – a very well known brand globally, sold in Australia under the Wolfcub name. I was able to locate a few international reviews here and here. My main aim is to find some of the smaller creatures on my hit list which have eluded me so far, such as the honey possum and pygmy possum.

In a nutshell: thermal cameras detect heat and resolve it in an image – much like the old Predator movie where the creature tries to hunt Arnie! They have a focal length much like a camera lens which determines the field of view.

I finally decided on the Wolfcub Explorer 3L – which has a 25mm lens, weighs just under 500g, is IP67 waterproof rated and 2m drop proof. It contains 16GB memory for taking stills and videos, and has a Wi-Fi hotspot which can broadcast to an app on a smartphone for others to view and control from another device. Battery lasts about 5 hours with Wi-Fi off, charged and accessed via USB-C. Images of the unit below.

I played around with it at home but was keen to get out and test it on some Aussie mammals. I decided to go back to one of my suburban brushtail possum spots as I knew they were there and it’s not too far from home – John Okey Davis Park in Gosnells, where I had found possums before. I initially found the thermal camera a little strange as my depth perception suffered when viewing trees through a digital screen.

I soon spotted my first possum – initially by spotlight (as that’s what I’m used to) but then quickly found it on the thermal. One of the camera features is the green cross which highlights the hottest spots on the sensor – the possum is the red dot right and below middle.

I was soon finding many possums and getting used to the strange world the thermal camera reveals. The Wolfcub has 4 different viewing palettes: Black hot, White hot, Red Hot and Fusion (predator mode!). I found that the red hot palette helped spot possums initially, but was surprised at the latent heat remaining on tree surfaces, rocks and pavement long after the sun had gone down.

The series below shows the same possum as I got closer – I was maybe 30-40m away when I first picked it up on the thermal.

This is the same possum once close enough to take a traditional photo.

I was quickly getting the hang of using the thermal for initially finding possums and then comparing what I could see through headtorch from the same distance. In some cases animals were not visible by spotlighting alone – spotlighting relies on picking up the reflective membrane in the animal’s retina, so they can be missed if their head is obscured or turned away. The thermal picks up heat but may not penetrate through trunks or thick layers of leaves either – the two methods complement each other well.

General photos of the possums after locating on thermal.

I also took some video to give an idea of what it looks like through the viewfinder. The resolution in the viewfinder is noticeably higher than what is recorded in stills and video. Here’s a video of a possum found on the railing of the bridge over the river.

I have created a YouTube playlist with more thermal camera videos.

I found a couple of mums with joeys which was lovely to see.

I still have a lot to learn using the thermal camera but it adds a genuinely useful tool to the kit. I am yet to try it on smaller mouse-sized creatures – finding things like honey possum and pygmy possum is the real reason I bought it, and I’ll write that up when it happens. Feel free to contact me directly if you would like to know more about the camera or how I use it. If you want to find possums yourself, John Okey Davis Park in Gosnells is a great starting point, and the Where to See Wildlife in Western Australia index has plenty of other locations across the state.

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Further reading

• Possums in Perth – finding brushtail possums in suburban bushland
• Craigie Bushland – quenda, possums and a bat
• Where to See Wildlife in Western Australia – full location index

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