Seeing like a deer: A guide to deer vision

You’re sitting in a tree stand watching the eight-point buck walk into range and he passes behind a tree. As you lean to the side to get a better view, you hear a buzz in your pocket from your cell phone receiving a text. In the quiet, did the buck hear you? Does he see you?

A number of researchers have been able to shed some light on what deer can see and what they’ve found can prevent you from getting busted by your quarry - even if your own stealth is less than perfect. They’ve identified three key differences between the vision of white-tailed deer and people, including physical traits influencing how deer see in general, their low-light vision and the deer’s color perception.

PHYSICAL TRAITS The eyes of a deer are shaped differently than human eyes. The pupil in humans is round. A deer’s pupil is shaped like a horizontal oval. This oval shape allows a deer to view a larger area to the left and right rather than what is above or below it.

Deer are frequently hunted by other wildlife such as mountain lions, bears, and coyotes. Those predators are terrestrial like the deer, so the deer doesn’t naturally look up into the trees to detect danger.

Humans and other predators have forward-facing eyes, enabling us to focus on specific objects, deer eyes are located on the side of the head. This placement gives the deer a 310-degree arc of vision to more easily keep an eye out for predators, even those approaching from behind. Humans are limited to only 140 degrees. The combination of pupil shape and eye placement results in a large horizontal view window. However the deer lacks a high degree of focus, which is why when the buck heard you shift in your tree stand he slightly bobbed and weaved his head in an attempt to get a better view of his surroundings.

LOW-LIGHT VISION Deer and other nocturnal animals display a glowing eyes when car headlights or other bright light beams shine on them. Called “eye shine,” the glow is caused by a dense layer of fibrous tissue in the back of the eye. This specialized tissue reflects visible light back through the animal’s eye to increase the ability to see in dim conditions. It’s almost like deer have built-in night-vision goggles. Deer are able to amplify the limited amount of moonlight during the darkest night to identify and move about their surroundings.

COLOR PERCEPTION Lastly, very few animals have the same perception of colors humans possess. Some animals have been documented as seeing only in black and white, while others can perceive colors that we humans cannot. The ability to see colors is controlled by the rods, which register dim-light vision, and cones, which detect color via three primary wavelengths of blue, green, and red. Subtle differences in the cones can greatly impact what an individual can see, which is why some people may suffer from color-blindness. In the case of deer, their ability to see blue is more amplified than that of humans, their green vision is similar to ours, and they lack definition of reds.

So what does all this mean for hunters? Their field of vision allows a deer to see the majority of its surroundings, but with limited vision above or below. The wide placement of their eyes comes at a cost: they see more around them, but much of what they see is out of focus. When dusk comes, deer have the advantage. They can see their surroundings much more clearly than we can, which explains how they can run through the woods at night but rarely ever trip over a log.

For color, there’s no need to be concerned about wearing blaze orange because the deer won’t be able to zero in on it like a fellow hunter can. Just don’t wear your blue jeans; you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. The best camo is one that blends in with the environment and doesn’t contain a lot of blues and whites (unless you’re hunting during snowfall, when whites will do just fine).

Just don’t move more than you have to and for goodness sakes, turn off both the ringtone and the buzzer alert on your phone.