A Seagull's Unbelievable Eyesight | Nature's Boldest Thieves | BBC Earth Explore

Does seagulls eyes being on the side of their head allow them to have a wider view ?

Nature's Boldest Thieves
Seagulls and other animals are learning to adapt to the urban environment and steal from humans. They're crafty, courageous, and coming for your food. No longer afraid of humans, seagulls have moved in to live amongst, and steal from us. They have adapted perfectly to life in the world's growing cities, and are terrorising anyone that comes between them and their food.

Welcome to BBC Earth Explore! We make films about the incredible natural world, we investigate the conundrums, quirks and beautiful science of our amazing planet, delving into the BBC vaults and mixing it up with our own stuff to take a brand new look at Earth.

[Sean-tnnv]

Seagulls adjusted the FOV slider to max.

[antivaxxnugs]

I must say seagulls are very beautiful, if u throw food in the air they will catch it, a free bird of prey show!

[Master_Therion]

Boy: *Tells joke.
Gull: I see what you did there.

[Macieks]

I think this applies to every animal with divergent eyes so practically every herbivorous animal.

[wleon]

Owls are the ONLY birds on Earth who have forward facing eyes. Because they cannot see behind themselves, they compensate this by being able to turn their heads backwards.

[sjetong]

Finally it makes sense to me why they seem so stupid to get past glass doors/windows. If they have such a broad sight it's probably not easy to be focused/or make sense of what they are looking at, except for just kind of feeling themselves around

[NehajThak]

interesting! and nice sunny Ilfracombe

[quantumpotential]

My peripheral vision is so unusual, I can see nearly everything behind me, including my past.

[Gil-ztur]

Seagulls are intelligent, charming sentient beings.

[bigbabatunde]

Got a feeling that seagulls cant see very well at night as they ignore food thrown for them at night. They look in my direction but can't seem to see the food getting thrown down for them.

[Kaneanite]

I'm surprised that even BBC Earth uses the incorrect Sea Gull term

[BlvckAdam]

I once saw a seagull try to eat a glove. And another was trying to eat duct tape.

[dubbingsync]

Great for stealing food or divebombing people just trying to walk under where they chose to nest to get home… and the fact that a baby gull is stranded on the ground as well. If I sound bitter it’s because that’s my life right now. Having to dodge gulls whenever I leave the stairwell of my building and wherever that baby (who is somehow surviving) decides to wander.

[jo-han]

Geese can see incredibly good too. I once saw a big flock of geese on a floodplain happily going about their business when hawks and buzzards flew over and came in to view from the size of being a dot in the sky to being in plain view and therefor identifiable. No reaction of the geese. Then later nothing to see in the sky and all of the sudden there is big alarm among the geese and they all start flying in a big circle above the floodplain. "O" said an older gentleman sitting next to me " the eagles are coming, they can see them. Same happened yesterday." It was a clear sky on the middle of sunny day and I didn't see anything approaching. That stayed like that for a minute and I started doubting whether eagles would arrive. "Ah there they are" some bloke with big binoculars said and pointed in a direction. Hmm nothing to see, so I point my binoculars. Still nothing to see. "Yeah they are tiny dots even in my binoculars, but there are 2 of them." "How you know they are eagles?" I asked. "I don't, but its the only 2 dots I currently see flying and the geese are scared of something." he answered. It took another minute before I could see them in my binoculars, still not more then moving dots. Could have been flies just some meters away. Took another 2 minutes to identify them really as birds, another minute before they would become identifiable as bird of prey. And the geese still alarming and flying circles. Then another minute or so to identify them really as bigger then a hawk. They took a minute to arrive clearly visible and clearly eagles, flew some circles above the circling geese then flew a little further and landed in a tree. The geese settled down. Flying right up anytime the eagles would fly a little just to go sit in another tree.

[nachoisone]

Seagulls may have amazing eyesite but they are such @$$holes!

[vegardpig]

They can also see very very far away. «My» seagull can see me inside my house from the shore that is like 200-250 meters away.

[alisenturk]

Amazing video. I Was born in the uk. I think that was somewhere in cornwall. Watching this video made me realize that the view of seagulls is not accidental but well designed and planned by a maker who is full of wisdom and might, and thats Almighty Allah who created everyone and everything for a purpose.

[Fiyaaaahh]

Pretty much every herbivore/prey animal has this eye socket placement. There's not much special about our flying friends.

[stevebuc]

Where this was recorded, looks likes swanage, ?

[blckfirebird]

Bunch of rats with wings stealing my beach food!