An Alternate Angle...
"Bird's Eye View". This phrase is often used as a metaphor to describe an overview about something. It is very obvious that when Bard's ancestors devised the phrase, they had imagined a bird in flight on the sky, trying to look at an object on the ground below. The phrase and its meaning perfectly matches the visualization. When we look at a problem/issue from a distance and it is described as the bird's eye view.
But have we ever wondered of a bird's vision when it is at the ground level? Off late, I happened to watch the behavior of crows, pigeons and parrots at close quarters and since then, this question has been lingering on my dumb head! However, I would like to omit owls and bats from this analysis for the anatomical positioning of their eyes.
For the rest of the common species of birds, their eyes are at the sides of their tiny head, equidistant from the nose. That is, when they sit straight facing North, they will get to see East & West. I seriously wonder how they manage to correlate between the left and the right eye. Left eye can show them delicious fruits and right eye can show an approaching predator! Now to what will the brain respond? Vision becomes more complicated, when they wanna look down or up. They actually turn their head at right angle, position one eye to see down (or one eye to see up??!!) and look down(up??!!).
I got this doubt, when I saw a pigeon seated at the parapet from the 10th floor window. He/She tilted his/her head to look up/down. One eye looking up and one eye looking down, how will his/her tiny little brain between the eyes, understand which is up/down. How will the teeny-weeny brain make out what exactly the bird is looking at?!
Based on the above confusion, I think we should coin a phrase, 'Sitting bird's eye view' which would simply mean, looking at a problem/issue on two different 180 degree angles and getting confused.
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12 comments:
hey....i too had a similar doubt...but only the creatures were camels, their eyes to seem to face in oppositte directions....but i guess..there must be some mechanism which gives them a managable field of vision!
"sitting birds eye view": he he he...
that was wonderful observation. your post gives rise to another doubt....
when the birds are sitting, can they never see whats there is front of them??? How odd???
Yadhvi,
Intha mathiri timela Bird's ellam romba observe pannatheenga..First Avian flu affected human in India India solli ungala yaravathu pudichitu poida poranga :-).
Jokes apart..Birds tend to have a powerful Monocular vision than Binocular vision which saves them from their predators.That also explains to some extent why they tend to fly always at an angle while approaching their prey.
neenga romba busya bird watching panreenga pola irukku ;-)
kaushik,
yeah, there must be a mechanism :-) guess, srivat has explained it!!
balaji,
Thanks, and about your doubt, I guess so.. I guess it is like using our ears for vision :-))
srivat,
avian flu..I had a qn about that too...Does avian flu attack only kozhis? they seem to be killing/protecting only hens..yeah, agreed that brings in huge revenue, but kaakaa biriyani saapidaravanga gathi?
and about the monocular vision, I still wonder how the brain processes the message from both the eyes?!
mukund,
:-) hee hee..
Eppadi yadhvi... chancey ilama kalakkureenga. Enga oorula bird watching na athukku vera meaning. Neenga panra bird watchingku enga oorula enna perunnu kettu pakkuren. I dont know about monocular vision and all... actually manushana thavira ella mirugathukkum side la thaan kannu irukku. What i had thought till these days," though their eyes are at side, their vision is like staright." Seri athellam vidunga. If the visions are different, according to the blog and comments, then those birds and animals are really lucky.. u knwo how? Right sidela yum sight adikkalam. right side la irukkura ponnukku theriyaama left sidelayum sight adikklam
More interesting than birds are chameleons. I've seen their eyes moving in different directions!
shastry,
:-)) good logic there...neenga solradhuku paeru...one-i-thology (to rhyme with ornithology) :-))
pranni,
really? chameleon avalo talented pranni ya? next time watch panren adhai!!
pranni is right. Chameleons have indpendently moveable eyes which enable them to get a 360 degree view of the world around them.
And yadhvi, "Sitting birds eye view- Flying birds eye view aa".. engeyooo poiteenga!! :)
It is quite true that their vision is not as effective on land as they are while in flight.
I saw a similar problem for birds in flight. I think the issue varies by species because some birds seem not to have the same problems and may have forward vision. The articles below, though, suggested to me that North American Cardinals have limited forward vision and use other geography to locate something.
http://birdseeing.blogspot.com/2006/07/phantom-feeder.html
http://birdseeing.blogspot.com/2006/08/attack-of-killer-peanuts.html
I like the new phrase and its explanation.. Good one !!
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