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Are Squirrels Attracted to Certain Colors? What They See

Squirrels are dichromats — they see blue and yellow well and cannot distinguish red from green. Why colour-based deterrents and feeders rarely work.

By Salma 2 min read Save to Pinterest — opens Pinterest in a new tab
A grey squirrel sitting in a hanging mesh tray feeder full of seed
Photo: Ray_Shrewsberry, Pixabay Content License, via Pixabay
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Squirrels see roughly what a red-green colour-blind person sees. That one fact disposes of most colour-based squirrel advice.

What a squirrel’s eye has

squirrelhumansmall bird
Cone types234 (includes UV)
Red vs greencannot separateseparatesseparates
Blue and yellowgoodgoodgood
Motion detectionexcellentmoderateexcellent
Field of viewvery widenarrowvery wide

Three colour myths worth dropping

  1. “Red scares them.” Red looks like dull green-brown to a squirrel.
  2. “A yellow feeder attracts them.” They find it by smell and by watching other animals.
  3. “The orange dye in hot pepper seed is the deterrent.” It is the capsaicin.

The one place colour does matter is hummingbird feeders

Birds are tetrachromats with sharp red perception. Red on a nectar feeder is a genuine signal to them — and means nothing at all to the squirrel hanging off the bottom of it.

What works instead

measureworks
Baffle above and belowyes, reliably
Pole 3 m from any launch pointyes
Weight-activated perchyes
Capsaicin-treated seedyes, selectively
Colour, fake owls, reflective tapeno

Squirrels jump further than people plan for

Around 3 m horizontally from a standing launch, and further downward from a branch. A baffled pole sited 2 m from a fence is a baffled pole a squirrel lands on top of.

Common questions

Are squirrels attracted to certain colors?

Not in any useful sense. Squirrels are dichromats: they have two cone types rather than the three primates have, so they see blue and yellow-green clearly and cannot distinguish red from green — both read as a similar dull shade. No colour reliably draws them in or drives them away. They locate food by smell and by memory of where food has been, and a feeder's colour is close to irrelevant to them.

What colours can squirrels see?

Blues and yellows, with good discrimination between them, and a broad band of greens, reds and browns that they cannot tell apart. This is standard dichromatic vision, the same arrangement most non-primate mammals have. Their eyes are also strongly weighted toward motion detection and a wide field of view, which is far more useful to an animal whose main problem is hawks.

Will a red or orange feeder deter squirrels?

No. Red appears to a squirrel as a dull greenish-brown and carries no warning signal whatsoever. The idea gets confused with hummingbird feeders, where red genuinely does attract because birds are tetrachromats with excellent red perception. What deters a squirrel is a physical baffle, not a colour.

Does capsaicin-treated seed work because of the colour?

No, and this is the common mix-up. Hot pepper seed is often dyed orange, but the deterrent is the capsaicin, which activates the TRPV1 receptor mammals carry and birds do not. The dye is for the human buying it. Plain capsaicin-treated seed with no dye works exactly as well.

Do squirrels see well at all?

Very well for their purposes. Sharp vision, excellent peripheral coverage from eyes set high on the sides of the head, and strong motion detection. They see ultraviolet poorly compared with birds and they have limited colour discrimination, but for spotting a hawk, judging a jump between branches and tracking a cat across a lawn, their vision is more than adequate.

What actually keeps squirrels off a feeder?

Geometry and distance. A baffle above and below the feeder, a pole at least 3 m from anything they can launch from, and a weight-activated perch that closes under a squirrel. Those three together work reliably. Colour, fake owls, reflective tape and most scent repellents do not.

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