Ask a Birder

Ask a Birder: Why do some birds have forward-facing eyes while others have sideways ones?

December 10, 2025 by Kai Pflug No Comments

Indeed, most bird species have eyes that are on the sides of their heads, but the eyes of some bird families face forward. Why the difference?

Birds with side-facing eyes have a very broad field of vision – it can reach almost 340 degrees, so there are almost no blind spots. That is particularly important for birds that are more likely to be prey than predators. For example, a pigeon can watch you approach from behind without moving its head. Of course, there is a downside to this as well – there is very limited overlap between the two eyes, which makes it more difficult to judge distances.

In contrast, many predators have forward-oriented eyes. That gives them excellent binocular vision as there is a substantial overlap in what both eyes see. And binocular vision greatly supports judging distances, something that is important when catching prey. Naturally, the downside is a limited field of view – so if you are very quiet and an owl does not move its head, you should be able to approach it from behind. Owls are actually the family that takes the forward-oriented eyes to extremes, probably because they mostly hunt at night. Under these conditions, depth perception matters much more than scanning a broad horizon compared to daytime raptors, which need to scan a broad area to find prey.

So, in short, it is a tradeoff between two desirable aspects – a broad field of view (side-facing eyes) and good judgement of distance (forward-facing eyes). Generally, which aspect is more important to survive depends on whether a species is more likely to be prey or predator.

Assuming the same logic applies to humans, this means our species is designed more as a predator and less as prey, which (sadly?) sounds about right.

Photos: Orange-breasted Green Pigeon, Bundala NP, Sri Lanka, March 2025; Northern Hawk Owl, Genhe area, Inner Mongolia, China, December 2024.

Written by Kai Pflug
Kai has lived in Shanghai for more than 21 years. He only started birding after moving to China, so he is far more familiar with Chinese birds than the ones back in his native Germany. As a birder, he considers himself strictly average and tries to make up for it with photography, which he shares on a separate website. Alas, most of the photos are pretty average as well. He hopes that few clients of his consulting firm—focused on China’s chemical industry—ever find this blog, as it might raise questions about his professional priorities. Much of his time is spent either editing posts for 10,000 Birds or cleaning the litter boxes of his numerous indoor cats. He occasionally considers writing a piece comparing the two activities.