All animals

How does an eagle see the world?

Four to five times our resolution, and stronger colour.

Aerial view of a green hillside meadow with a small distant rabbitHuman vision
Aerial view of a green hillside meadow with a small distant rabbit, as it would appear to a eagleEagle vision

Find the rabbit on the left. Now look at the same rabbit on the right.

What's going on

Eagles pack far more cones into a deeper fovea, plus a fourth cone type, giving them roughly 20/5 vision - four to five times sharper than ours. They can spot small prey like a rabbit from nearly two miles away. The rabbit you can barely pick out of the grass is simply visible, as if the middle of the scene were permanently magnified.

Field of view

You: ~190°

Eagle: ~300°

Approximate horizontal field of view, seen from above. The dot is the head.

You vs the eagle

Low-light visionYou win
You
Eagle
Fine detailEagle wins
You
Eagle
Colour rangeEagle wins
You
Eagle
Motion detectionEagle wins
You
Eagle