While I haven't purposefully disguised myself while trapping and casting to initially put on equipment, I have usually been wearing stocking or baseball caps, sunglasses and coats when doing so, and usually am not when I start manning/training.

But I do try to reduce stress as much as possible with a look at the return on time put in. I use a systematic desensitization strategy for my initial manning, which is basically on the opposite end of an intrusiveness continuum from wake manning. I only enter the mew for a few second each time, several times a day the first day or two until the bird is eating. Then I toss small food each time I come into view and the bird remains calm (there is really a lot more to it than this). Usually by day 7 or so the bird is coming to me, and they have always weighed more than the trapping weight, and I have really only spent a couple of hours at most with the bird and almost every time they were highly reinforced.

This greatly reduces the stress of the bird. I know of some training golden eagles that have greatly reduced the rate of Asper with this method vs. more hands on manning.

I think you were asking about just the initial casting and bad stuff when you first get a bird, but as far as casting the bird once trained and working, I firmly believe in being the one to do the bad thing. I want to keep the overall stress as low as possible and I have seen that my birds are much calmer and recover much faster when I hold them or at least initially restrain them. Their overall stress is lower and I don't rob too much trust from them, AS LONG AS I have built up lots of trust to begin with. If it is something that has to be done regularly, then I will really work on training aspects of the process to give them reinforcers for doing it. My first redtail would let me trickle meds in her mouth from a syringe while sitting on her perch.

I may have to look at disguising myself more in the trapping part of getting a bird now and see if that can make a difference.

Andy