{"id":13866,"date":"2015-06-07T06:50:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T13:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=13866"},"modified":"2015-06-07T06:50:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T13:50:36","slug":"staring-contests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=13866","title":{"rendered":"Staring contests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A staring contest is a game in which an individual\u00a0stares into another&#8217;s eyes and attempts to maintain unblinking eye contact for longer than the\u00a0opponent.<\/p>\n<p>It is the rare human who can\u00a0win a staring contest with a White-tailed Deer.\u00a0<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13869\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/whitetaileddeer150606s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yet, it is trivial matter to win a staring contest with a Bald Eagle.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13868\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/eagle121010as3.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was reminded of this curiosity in the last few\u00a0days when I had two really close encounters with deer. The result of the contests was: deer 2, human 0. Why is there such a difference between deer, humans, and eagles? It probably comes down to the differences in their eyes.<\/p>\n<p>The greatest spacial and colour resolution takes place in the eye&#8217;s fovea. The numbers are:<br \/>\n <span style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eagle_eye\" target=\"_blank\">Eagle<\/a>: 1,000,000 retinal cells per mm<sup>2 <\/sup>, 4-colour vision;<\/span><br \/>\n <span style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u2022 Humans: 200,000 retinal cells per mm<sup>2<\/sup>, 3-colour vision;<\/span><br \/>\n <span style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u2022 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dfw.state.or.us\/resources\/hunting\/safety\/docs\/Deer_Vision.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Deer<\/a>: 40,000 retinal cells per mm<sup>2<\/sup>, 2-colour vision.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Consider the eagle: its vision is much better than that of a human. It easily assesses a human as neither predator nor prey. Consequently, it quickly shifts its gaze elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Consider the deer: it isn&#8217;t trying to outstare you; indeed, it isn&#8217;t really sure you are there. The deer&#8217;s (daytime) vision is sufficiently poor that it freezes as it tries to decide if there is a threat. If it cannot smell you (the wind is in the wrong direction), it takes its time assessing this possibly new feature in its environment. If the human does not move, and its colours blend well with the surroundings, the deer might as well not waste energy by bolting, but rather return to browsing.<\/p>\n<p>This White-tailed Deer was seen in the same area as the doe, above, but a day earlier. We stared at each other as my camera clicked away. Apparently, deer have yet to evolve an understanding of digital photography.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13878\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/whitetaileddeer150604s2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; A staring contest is a game in which an individual\u00a0stares into another&#8217;s eyes and attempts to maintain unblinking eye contact for longer than the\u00a0opponent. It is the rare human who can\u00a0win a staring contest with a White-tailed Deer.\u00a0 Yet, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=13866\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-mammals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13866"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13904,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866\/revisions\/13904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}