Focus on Sight

Canon EOS 5D

ƒ/7.1

300 mm

1/320

1250

“Line up the targets, focus on sight
Straight to the center, infrared light”
►Thievery Corporation ♫

Birds see a wider color spectrum than we do. Humans have three types of cones (RGB color space), and birds have at least four dimensions of color vision, taking them into the ultraviolet end of the spectrum.

Increased dimensionality produces a qualitatively different color perception, one that we cannot intuitively understand.

“The tetra- or pentachromatic color space of birds appears to be the most complex in nature and is likely involved in virtually all areas of the animals’ lives, from the discrimination and recognition of objects to more complex behavioral tasks such as navigation, the classification of objects, and social and sexual behavior.” (more info)

24 responses to “Focus on Sight”

biotron

Mar 28, 2006 at 6:59 pm

ace – and if you’re a great grey owl, you just happen to have a radar-dish for a face, as well 🙂

Reply
Fintan

Mar 28, 2006 at 7:11 pm

very cool

Reply
mixed ink

Mar 28, 2006 at 9:34 pm

birds are coming from dinosaurs. i guess they’re used to developp naturally what we, humans, do discover as the most important sense ever : the vision
but we loosed some time to evolve in a different way.
birds also have a very interesting social behaviour.
i do respect birds so much more than what we can see now with bird flu.
they are wise, much more than i am -_-

Reply
jurvetson

Mar 28, 2006 at 11:38 pm

and keep in mind that the bird flu problem is not inherent to the birds, but to their artificial concentration in farms. There are 12 billion chickens in China alone, and they are packed very densely. Virulent and lethal viruses need concentrated populations to evolve (otherwise the virus itself would become extinct in a naturally quarantined hot zone). For example, every species that has reached a critical value of population density has evolved its own particular pox virus (human smallpox, mousepox, cowpox, antpox, etc.)

Reply
angry shock

Mar 29, 2006 at 12:09 am

piratepox? hope not.

Reply
jurvetson

Mar 29, 2006 at 12:52 am

hmmm… never got enough of dem pirates… and thus, the global warming problem

Reply
angry shock

Mar 29, 2006 at 1:48 am

Arrr, landlubber! Me forgot that!

Reply
Robert Tilman

Mar 30, 2006 at 10:03 pm

Love that song – amazing shot!

Reply
FoTo FeVeR

Apr 1, 2006 at 5:40 pm

🙂 nice shot

Reply
FoTo FeVeR

Apr 1, 2006 at 5:43 pm

p.s. and i love the science and learning that happens with these pictures, this is unique thing i enjoy in your collection!

Reply
Jeff Clow

Apr 2, 2006 at 5:16 pm

Superb nature capture, Steve…and thanks for the lesson embedded in the caption.

My compliments – VERY nicely done.

(1-2-3)

Reply
oefe

Apr 2, 2006 at 5:31 pm

Excellent shot!

1-2-3

Reply
fanz

Apr 2, 2006 at 5:40 pm

Yes it is a great capture! And thanks for the lesson, I learned something today! 1-2-3

Reply
maesk

Apr 2, 2006 at 11:19 pm

I wish we had teachers like you back in school 🙂
Excellent capture and interesting info (as always). Thanks!

Reply
_ Krystian PHOTOSynthesis (wild-thriving) _

Apr 6, 2006 at 4:30 pm

Thanks for the Story to that, great together.

Reply
Scott Dungan

May 28, 2006 at 1:23 am

Brilliant!

The World Through My Eyes
Inspired by Music

Reply
inquisitive hope

May 28, 2006 at 3:18 am

Wonderfil! Great capture, and the music works beautifully with this! The additional information is really interesting. Thanks!

Thank you for sharing this photo on our inspired by music thread!

The World Through My Eyes

Reply
brownscorpios

May 28, 2006 at 1:01 pm

Just had to say I LOVE the Thievery Corp.! Very cool shot
The world through my eyes

Reply
rml1219

Dec 15, 2006 at 4:10 am

Amazing shot!

Reply
famkefonz

Feb 28, 2008 at 1:52 am

Seagulls and Pigeons group invite you to drop in!
Please add this wonderful photo to our pool
Seagulls and Pigeons

Reply
jurvetson

Aug 11, 2009 at 5:08 pm

I also like the way they walk

Reply
jurvetson

Dec 1, 2009 at 5:52 pm

even more bizarre…

"Birds Navigate by ‘Seeing’ Magnetic Field Lines
The results raise the distinct possibility that this part of the vision system enables birds to ‘see’ magnetic compass information, conclude the researchers (Nature, DOI 10.1038/nature05828)."
— New Scientist, October 31, 2009, p.18.

Reply
biotron

Dec 1, 2009 at 9:32 pm

hmmm… wow!

Reply
jurvetson

Aug 12, 2013 at 12:09 am

and an update from the current New Scientist special on Bird Senses…

"Raptors – hawks, falcons and eagles – can see to distances far greater than we can. One reason for this is that the light-sensitive layer at the back of our eyes, the retina, has one fovea, a sensitive spot where the image is sharpest. Raptors, in contrast, have two foveae in each eye, which is equivalent to a camera having both a telephoto and a macro lens.

We now know that birds’ brains are more lateralised than our own. Intriguingly, in birds with eyes located on the sides of their head, this extends to using the left and right eyes for different tasks. In day-old chickens, for example, the right eye tends to be used for finding food while the left scans for predators. You might imagine this difference to be hard-wired – genetic – but it isn’t. Just before a chick hatches, it has its right eye facing outwards, which means it receives some light through the shell. The left, inward-facing eye gets no light. However, if you gently turn the chick’s head in the shell so that the left eye gets most light, lateralisation is reversed.

Sixth sense
We still do not know exactly how it works, but what we do know is mind-bogglingly bizarre.

First, birds seem to detect the direction of the magnetic field using microscopic crystals of magnetite – a magnetic form of iron oxide – located around their eyes and in the nasal cavity of the upper beak. More recently, it has emerged that they may also detect the strength of the field via a chemical reaction – physicists have known since the 1970s that certain chemical reactions can be modified by magnetic fields. Stranger yet, studies of the European robin indicate that the reaction involved is induced by light entering the bird’s right eye only. Researchers are currently striving to find out where in the body the reaction takes place. Meanwhile, some speculate that it might allow birds to "see" the contours of the Earth’s magnetic field – something that is difficult to envisage as a mere human.

Reply

Focus on Sight

24 responses to “Focus on Sight”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply