Introduction
Have you ever wondered what it's like to have the eye of a falcon, would you be able to look and see things more clearly? In this website we will tell you everything about the falcon eye and then we will talk about how different the eye of a falcon and the eye of a human is. You will also find information about the external features of the Falcon eye and human eye and how different they are from each other. Then, we will talk about the internal features of the bird eye and human eye and the similarities and differences between them. After that, we will tell you some interesting facts about Falcon eye.
Hope you like it!!
Falcon Eye
Internal structure of the Falcon eye:
A fact about birds are that they can not blink. This is done by the nictitating membrane. The retina is a part of they eye that’s consists of cones and rods. While humans only have 200,000, Falcons have 1,000,000. Birds can see in UV light unlike humans who can not.
All falcons are born with especially big eyes that take up a large amount of their skull which leaves a limited amount for their brain. These big eyes let large amounts of light come in and that produces a large image. The detail and resolution in the image depend if the retinal image is spread over a big amount of visual cells.
Accommodation: Flacons use their memory and visual information to get the size and distance of their prey. They first remember how large the prey is and then judge whether it’s near or far. Accommodation is when small ciliary muscles that surround the eye make a curve so that the eye can focus on near
and far objects. When a prey moves closer or farther from a falcon, the falcon’s eyes remain focused but the curves on the lens change rapidly.
Binocularly: Something that humans and birds both have in common is that we both have eyes that face forward. A binocular vision is when the the field vision of the right eye and left eye overlap. A human eye overlaps 120 degrees while a falcons eye overlaps 90 degrees which helps them get a sharp and 3D image.
Second Fovea. Humans only have a central fovea while falcons have a central and lateral fovea. A fovea is a part of your eye where the vision is the sharpest. Having two foveas helps make a sharper image because then you have two parts where your vision is the sharpest.
Pecten: The pecten is a thin tissue that extends from the retina to the lens. Falcons have one of the largest pecten of all birds. The pecten provides nutrients for the vitreous humor. That reduces the amount of blood vessels in the retina. The fewer blood vessels scatters the light coming into the eye. Raptor vision has become one of the sharpest vision between all organisms.
External structure of the Falcon eye:
Its pretty hard to imagine how birds see the world since they have 8 times better vision than humans. Why might a falcon or any bird have better vision than humans? Flight depends on vision, if any bird were blindfolded then they wouldn’t be able to fly because it would be unable to orient itself. How did some birds develop better vision? Due to natural selection over thousands of generations populations of birds have adapted to the needs of survival. The birds need to be able to see at a close range and needed to be able to keep focus at a high range, so through natural selection populations of birds have adapted to those needs.
Fishing Is Not Easy
Notice how the straw on the glass of water looks like it's bent. This is called refraction and this makes it very hard for falcons to know exactly where their prey is. Their eyes don't seem to be able to fix the refraction but their tiny brains are. Since their eyes can't correct it their brains train them for time to correct it and to be able to catch fish or any prey for that matter.
Falcon Eye Lids
Unlike humans who have one eye lid in each eye falcons have 3 eyelids. The two outer lids are the ones that can be seen with a naked eye. On the falcon eye the bottom lid is bigger than the upper lid, which is why the they blink upwards. The third eyelid that all birds have is the nictitating membrane which is transparent and opens and closes from side to side unlike the other 2 eye lids. The third eyelid is locations next to the tear glands. Talking about tear glands they are always working always producing tears even when you are not crying. The tears help to keep the eye hydrated because of a chemical called lysozyme which protects the eye from infection by killing bacteria. But normal tears are not enough for those birds that spend a lot of time near the ocean. These birds have glands that produce special oily tear that will protect their eye from the salty sea water and the bacteria in it.
