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During hunting season, many people focus on wardrobe. Spying on wildlife, however, is a year-round pursuit that also requires some consideration of your apparel. Knowing how your different wildlife suspects see the world can guide your choices.

The tools of the trade of wildlife viewing, binoculars and spotting scopes, allow you to scrutinize wildlife from a distance. But sometimes a wildlife spy needs to blend in. It helps to understand how various animals see, because some animals literally see the world very differently than humans. What may seem glaringly obvious to you, such as blaze orange, is essentially a featureless gray to deer or moose. Birds, however, see the orange vividly. When dusk closes in and leaches away the colors of the world, you start to have trouble distinguishing objects, but a bear may see just as clearly, especially something moving.

Many mammals see fewer colors than humans - they're more tuned into movement than color. Specialized cells in the eyes called cones detect color. In humans, each cone is sensitive to red, green or blue light. Deer, however, only have cones that detect yellows and blues. They see the world as a mix of those colors and grays. Remember the last time you went to the eye doctor? You may have had to look at pictures of numbers against a background made of different colored dots. If you are red-green colorblind, the image looks like a numberless circle made up of little dots, similar to what a deer would see. So blaze orange, for deer, merely blends into the background.

Don't be fooled into thinking you have the upper hand though. Deer do see colors that humans can't. Their eyesight sensitivity extends into the ultraviolet range. The lenses in human eyes block ultraviolet, so we can't see it without special equipment. How does this affect your wardrobe? Many fabric brighteners in laundry detergents reflect ultraviolet. If you've ever been exposed to a "black light," (which uses ultraviolet light to create a fluorescent effect visible to human eyes) and been horrified to see weird swirls and splotches on the pants you thought were clean, that's from your detergent. While a deer doesn't care how clean your pants are, they will see the splotches as bright spots against the forest backdrop. Using detergents without brighteners and not using bleach will help you blend into the background from a deer's-eye view.

Bears see about as well as humans, in a color range closer to ours, including red, which helps them see berries and other foods. Of course, if you really want to observe your suspect's natural behavior, the best (and safest!) way to watch a bear is from a distance with a good pair of binoculars. Although their sense of smell is their keenest method of detecting their environment, bears can definitely see movement from a distance. Wearing clothes that aren't highly contrasting will help you watch from afar. As with the deer, don't be fooled into thinking your eyesight is better all around. Bears have a layer of reflective tissue along the back of their eyeballs called the tapetum lucidum - it's the same layer that makes a dog's eyes appear to glow eerily in photos sometimes, or flash in headlights. The layer reflects light back to the retina so the bear can see in low light conditions, such as dusk or dawn, far better than a human.

Birds, visually speaking, are the most difficult wildlife to dress for. Like humans, they see a full range of colors, perhaps even more vividly than we do. And many species also see in ultraviolet; hummingbirds, gulls, many songbirds and mallards are just a few. In fact, where humans have three types of color-sensing cone cells, many birds have four, with the fourth detecting the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. Not only can a bird see your blaze orange, but it will also pick up on the splashes of brightener left by your laundry detergent.

Seeing ultraviolet helps birds in various ways. Many seeds stand out more against the background in ultraviolet. In some species where the males and females look the same to us, the males have ultraviolet markings that attract females. For your bird watching wardrobe, bright colors such as white, light blue, or red will make you stand out for your winged suspects. Duller colors such at tans, greens and browns are much less obvious. And you may want to check the ingredient list on your laundry detergent.

• Beth Peluso is an author and illustrator in Juneau and serves as the Watchable Wildlife Program Coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. She can be reached at beth.peluso@alaska.gov.