Thread: What Deer See

I had thread on another forum about deer vision. I did some research and discovered deer have quite good colour vision. They are dichromatic as opposed to humans being trichromatic. We have blue, green and red colour cones in our eyes as well as monochrome rods. Deer have rods as well as blue and green colour cones. But, they have very large irises which let in a lot of light so they see well in starlight. Another difference between theirs and ours eyes is we have a yellow pigment in out eyes which filters out UV, they don't. They don't see the colour purple like we do. They see it as blue just like UV. Purple is a composite of red and blue and we see it because our red cones have a sensitivity at the near ultraviolet so we see a mix of blue and red = purple.

It has been said that deer see some yellow in a shades of grey world. They don't. They see greens and blues and a mix of those colours (although we have no idea how their brains actually perceive colours) in a coloured world just like we do but what we see as white would be cyan to them (their equivalent of white, which could well be their white).

They do see UV in low light and possibly in bright light too. The significance of that is the washing powders we use to wash our cammo gear!

Deer do not have the visual acuity that we do. What they see is possibly like what wee see in our near peripheral vision, say about five degrees off central vision.

Deer also do not see light in the far red, which is out of range of both their rods and green cones. That has little significance for us though but we could theoretically stalk them in the dark using a deep red light. Trouble is we don't have good vision in the deep red anyway and besides, we don't hunt at night unless on private land.

P.S. Turkey see six colours! They have four colour cones, two of those have colour filters, giving them the six colour receptors.

Originally Posted by 303Guy

P.S. Turkey see six colours! They have four colour cones, two of those have colour filters, giving them the six colour receptors.

Luckily turkeys in NZ aren't the most clever of their kind...

Great bit of info though, thanks for the read. I was totally unaware that deer were able to see UV light.

So does this mean deer will see blue blaze the same as a similar shade of green clothing? I can understand them not seeing blaze orange if they don't have red cones.

I should think blue would be brighter to deer because it stands out from the surroundings while green would pretty much blend in. Blue could also have a UV component to make it seem brighter to us so that would really stand out to a deer. From what I can gather, being able to see us is not such a big deal, it's whether or not they can identify what they are seeing and more importantly whether they can see our movement.

Here's a test to try understand what deer see; Face yourself in a mirror and look to one side by about five degrees and just stare blankly. It's pretty hard to make out our facial features but then move a muscle in your face, fron or something and suddenly it becomes quite clear what we are seeing. I'd imagine deer see something like that and that small movement of frowning really stands out.

Our turkey are indeed pretty dumb but try eradicating them and see how smart the survivors are the following year! An interesting thing about turkey vision is the cannot move their eyes (being flat shaped) so their binocular vision is not good. To compensate they move their heads to gain visual depth. That's why they bob their heads when they are looking intently at something.

What a deer can see or what it cant see in colour means squat. Smell is the main one to worry about, they have great sniffers over a huge distance.
Movement will ping their senses and the sniffers then work over time trying to suss out that movement.
Any colour or camo and movement combined means, What the #uck! to a deer.

Interesting though about what's been originally posted.

I don't know if it makes any difference but I wash my hunt gear separately using some detergent that has no UV brighteners in it - nothing special just stuff from the supermarket

Agree that smell is primary but any little thing I can do that doesn't cost too much can't hurt

This is what they don't see a wee 7mm08 pill

I've been a hunter for 35yrs and 9yrs as a culler and the best thing I learnt was to shoot the animal before it see you. Then it did not matter what you were wearing and I doinit is right they will smell you before they see you

What about sound? Deer have pretty good hearing. I have heard of deer standing still as trampers and hunters walk past but as soon as they are seen they bolt. Are they not smelling us when they do that or are they trusting their presence has not been detected? It's not that they don't know we are there as they stand and watch us from behind cover.

Yep just like a rabbit hugging the ground.

Deer are less likely to take flight from sound, as long as you are not hunting like a bulldozer though the bush. Next time you see a deer and it doesn't know your there just watch for a moment and then snap a stick and see what it does. As long as you are in area that has not had dogs chasing them, then they will bolt, they will stand there using all there senses to try and work out what you are. The biggest problem with hunters in this day and age is all they what to do is shoot the animal as fast as possible and not observe them in the wild and learn

Originally Posted by 303Guy

What about sound? Deer have pretty good hearing. I have heard of deer standing still as trampers and hunters walk past but as soon as they are seen they bolt. Are they not smelling us when they do that or are they trusting their presence has not been detected? It's not that they don't know we are there as they stand and watch us from behind cover.

One thing of note to add is that as soon as you make eye contact with a deer it is gone, they will stand if they think you haven't seen them and it's amazing how easy it is to walk past them and not see the buggers, they are even worse in the dark 'cos they will sometimes wait until you are within a couple of metres and then bolt which usually results in a change of underwear.

You make a good point, eve. I'm about to enter deer hunting and I must say I'm kinda more interested in finding and observing them than the actual kill. Which is why I am trying to learn as much about them as I can.

Hunting is a lot easier now than when I started out, it was close to 2yrs before I or any of my mates shot a deer as it was the high of the deer wars. Now I can go out and see several deer a day, that no bull shit. And that's up the Kaimais and you won't find any bush thicker than that in this country that has deer in it. You just need to learn where the deer hang out in the area's you hunt like all creatures different times of the year they will be in different areas

Originally Posted by Steveh054

One thing of note to add is that as soon as you make eye contact with a deer it is gone, they will stand if they think you haven't seen them and it's amazing how easy it is to walk past them and not see the buggers, they are even worse in the dark 'cos they will sometimes wait until you are within a couple of metres and then bolt which usually results in a change of underwear.

I had that the other day walking back,thought i would walk along the edge of a bush line next thing was i heard some thing get up and run. (was not a pig as it did not go bush bashing)At the time i was thinking about pigs charging at you if your in the way. Got to say felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up