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How does the peregrine falcon see?

The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) is a bird in the order Falconiformes. Its eyes belong to the vision type Raptor telephoto.

Measured in this species: night vision and motion (flicker fusion). One measured dial: a value other than colour or sharpness is measured in this species; colour and sharpness are not measured here. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.

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What stands out

The six dials

Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.

Vision values for the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), catalogue-v1
DialValueEvidenceSources
ColourColour receptors
4 receptor classes: 404 nm (VS/SWS (violet)), 449 nm (SWS (blue)), 503 nm (MWS (green)), 566 nm (LWS (long))
ESTIMATE: receptor classes from opsin-gene presence in this species; lambda max per class from the measured class template of the nearest taxon (never from the gene itself)
Group default[1][2][3][4]
SharpnessAcuity
43 cycles per degree
median of 3 relatives in genus Falco: Falco berigora, Falco sparverius, Falco tinnunculus
Estimated[5][6][7]
Field of viewBinocular overlap
37°
median of 3 relatives in genus Falco: Falco sparverius, Falco biarmicus, Falco cherrug
Estimated[8][9][10]
Total field of view
292°
median total field (measured, or 360 - blind area) of relatives in genus Falco: Falco sparverius
Estimated[9]
Sharp zones (foveas)Number of foveas
1
median of 48 relatives in class Aves: Branta canadensis, Cardinalis cardinalis, Passerina cyanea, Zenaida macroura, Cyanocitta cristata, Junco hyemalis
Group default[11][12][13]
Fovea type
single central fovea (displaced dorso-temporally from retinal centre)		Group default[11][12][13]
Night visionActivity pattern
diurnal
mode of 8 rows (of 8 rows): diurnal; not_nocturnal; photopic
Measured (not re-verified)[14][15][16][17][18][19]
Rods vs cones
cone-dominated
nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated
Derived[14][15][16][17][18][19]
Motion (flicker fusion)Flicker fusion frequency
124.5 Hz
median of 1 bright-light rows (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [124.5])
Measured[20]

Related animals

More birds: all birds with measured vision data.

Sources

  1. Borges R, Khan I, Johnson WE, Gilbert MTP, Zhang G, Jarvis ED, O'Brien SJ, Antunes A (2015) Gene loss, adaptive evolution and the co-evolution of plumage coloration genes with opsins in birds. BMC Genomics 16:751
  2. Lind O, Mitkus M, Olsson P, Kelber A. 2014. Ultraviolet vision in birds: the importance of transparent eye media. Proc R Soc B 281:20132209. Table 1. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2209
  3. Longcore T. 2023. A compendium of photopigment peak sensitivities and visual spectral response curves of terrestrial wildlife to guide design of outdoor nighttime lighting. Basic Appl Ecol 73:40-50. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2023.09.002. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8432720
  4. VPOD in-vivo (MSP / single-cell) lambda max compendium, file scp_cleaned.csv, VPOD GitHub (Frazer et al. 2025 bioRxiv 10.1101/2025.08.22.671864). github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db/tree/main/scripts_n_notebooks/vpod_ML_workflows/mine_n_match/data_sources/lmax/vpod
  5. Caves EM, Brandley NC, Johnsen S (2018) Visual acuity and the evolution of signals. Trends Ecol Evol 33:358-372. Supplementary Tables S1-S3.. doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.03.001
  6. Caves EM, Fernandez-Juricic E, Kelley LA (2024) Ecological and morphological correlates of visual acuity in birds. J Exp Biol 227(2): jeb246063. Supplementary Table S1.. doi.org/10.1242/jeb.246063
  7. Potier S, Mitkus M, Kelber A (2020) Visual adaptations of diurnal and nocturnal raptors. Semin Cell Dev Biol 106:156-164. Table 1.. doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2020.05.004
  8. Potier S, Roulin A, Martin GR, Portugal SJ, Bonhomme V, Bouchet T, de Romans R, Meyrier E, Kelber A. 2023. Binocular field configuration in owls: the role of foraging ecology. Proc R Soc B 290: 20230664. Data figshare.. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0664
  9. Tyrrell LP, Moore BA, Loftis C, Fernandez-Juricic E 2017 (data 2017). The hawk-eyed songbird: retinal morphology, eye shape, and visual fields of an aerial insectivore. Am Nat 189(6). Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.n7140.. doi.org/10.1086/691404
  10. Tyrrell LP, Fernandez-Juricic E 2017. Avian binocular vision: it's not just about what birds can see, it's also about what they can't. PLoS ONE 12(3): e0173235. S1 Table.. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173235
  11. Moore BA, Tyrrell LP, Pita D, Bininda-Emonds ORP, Fernandez-Juricic E 2017. Does retinal configuration make the head and eyes of foveate birds move? Sci Rep 7: 38406. Appendix 1.. doi.org/10.1038/srep38406
  12. Potier S, Mitkus M, Bonadonna F, Duriez O, Isard P-F, Dulaurent T, Mentek M, Kelber A 2017. Eye size, fovea, and foraging ecology in accipitriform raptors. Brain Behav Evol 90: 232-242. Supplementary material (Tables S1, S2).. doi.org/10.1159/000479783
  13. Rodrigues T, Matter MM, Chiodini A, et al. 2026. Foveal vision in fast-flying birds hunting on the wing. bioRxiv 2026.06.05.730304. doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.05.730304
  14. Anderson SR, Wiens JJ. 2017. Out of the dark: 350 million years of conservatism and evolution in diel activity patterns in vertebrates. Evolution 71:1944-1959. Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.fg700. doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fg700
  15. Light conditions and the evolution of the visual system in birds (figshare dataset, SupplementaryDataset1). doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22116371.v3
  16. Choiniere JN, Neenan JM, Schmitz L, Ford DP, Chapelle KEJ, Balanoff AM, Sipla JS, Georgi JA, Walsh SA, Norell MA, Xu X, Clark JM, Benson RBJ. 2021. Evolution of vision and hearing modalities in theropod dinosaurs. Science 372:610-613. doi:10.1126/science.abe7941. Data: https://osf.io/teq73/. doi.org/10.1126/science.abe7941
  17. Wilman H, Belmaker J, Simpson J, de la Rosa C, Rivadeneira MM, Jetz W. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027. BirdFuncDat.txt. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
  18. Schmitz L, Motani R. 2011. Science 332:705-708, SOM. doi.org/10.1126/science.1200043
  19. Moura et al. 2024. A phylogeny-informed characterisation of global tetrapod traits addresses data gaps and biases. PLoS Biol 22:e3002658. TetrapodTraits v3.0.1.. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22536349
  20. Lafitte A, Sordello R, Legrand M, Nicolas V, Obein G, Reyjol Y. 2022. A flashing light may not be that flashy: A systematic review on critical fusion frequencies. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0279718. S10 File (CFF database). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279718
  21. Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
  22. Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631

Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?