Tip for Reading List: This is really a bird’s eye view

As the images show, birds see a very different reality compared to what humans see. Human colour vision is based on what is known as the RGB combination — red, green and blue.

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Birds’ colour vision is based on four colours — the RGB combination and also ultraviolet. Among other things, birds see contrasts in dense forest foliage, whereas people only see a wall of green.

For birds, the upper sides of leaves appear much lighter in ultraviolet. From below, the leaves are very dark. In this way the three-dimensional structure of dense foliage is obvious to birds.

This in turn makes it easy for them to move, find food and navigate. People, on the other hand, see the foliage in green.

Source: Lund University