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How does the tawny owl see?

The tawny owl (Strix aluco) is a bird in the order Strigiformes. Its eyes belong to the vision type Owl and night bird: tubular forward eyes (owls) or tiny eyes (kiwi), rod-dominated, low acuity, fixed eyes.

Measured in this species: colour, sharpness, field of view, foveas and night vision. Measured core: measured values on at least 3 of the 6 dials. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.

Sample scene drawn in code: a face with red lips, a green shirt, red and green apples, flowers and a colour strip, as a person sees it.
The sample scene as a person sees it.
The same sample scene rendered by the See Like Animals engine for the tawny owl's eyes, using the values in the table below.
The same scene rendered for the tawny owl (60° field of view, daylight).
See your photo as the tawny owlThis species is in the free set of the tool. Your photo stays on your device.

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 tawny owl (Strix aluco), catalogue-v1
DialValueEvidenceSources
ColourColour receptors
4 receptor classes: 420 nm (VS/SWS (violet)), 463 nm (SWS (blue)), 530 nm (MWS (green)), 555 nm (LWS (long))
measured in this species
Measured[1][2][3]
SharpnessAcuity
9.55 cycles per degree
median of 2 behavioural rows (method priority rule)
Measured[4][5]
Field of viewBinocular overlap
48°
median of 1 rows (eyes-at-rest rows preferred)
Measured[6]
Total field of view
201°
species-v1.csv
Measured (not re-verified)[7]
Blind area behind the head
159°
blind area = 360 - total field
Derived[7]
Eye placement
lateral
frontal if binocular overlap >= 60 deg, else lateral
Derived[6]
Sharp zones (foveas)Number of foveas
1
species-v1.csv text: 1 (temporal shallow fovea)
Measured[8][7]
Fovea type
temporal		Measured[8][7]
Night visionActivity pattern
nocturnal
mode of 7 rows (of 7 rows): diurnal; mesopic; nocturnal
Measured (not re-verified)[9][10][11][12][2][13][14]
Reflective layer (tapetum)
no		Measured (not re-verified)[15]
Rods vs cones
rod-dominated
nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated
Derived[9][10][11][12][2][13][14]
Motion (flicker fusion)Flicker fusion frequency
50 Hz
median of 3 relatives in family Strigidae: Bubo virginianus, Athene noctua, Asio flammeus
Estimated[16][17]

Related animals

More birds: all birds with measured vision data.

Sources

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. species_v1:Martin 1984
  8. Shukla AK, Velasco Gallego ML, Lavaud A, Hatt JM, Pot SA. 2026. Rehabilitating wild birds of prey following ocular trauma - should foveal assessment include spectral-domain optical coherence tomography? BMC veterinary research 22(1):187. doi.org/10.1186/s12917-025-05245-2
  9. 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
  10. Light conditions and the evolution of the visual system in birds (figshare dataset, SupplementaryDataset1). doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22116371.v3
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. Schmitz L, Motani R. 2011. Science 332:705-708, SOM. doi.org/10.1126/science.1200043
  14. 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
  15. species_v1:Martin 1977
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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?