[mychael (OP)]

As I understand it the closer the eyes are to the front of the head then the better is depth perception. Carnivores/hunters tend to have eyes closer together and more to the front and other types of animals (such as horses) have their eyes wider apart to give better ability to see predators. If my understanding is correct I wonder how it affects birds that have their eyes widely spaced on their heads as I would have thought that for landing and flying up to trees and around branches that a bird would have needed good depth perception to avoid collision and to be able to accurately land on small branches.

[LeeE]

The most important feature is that the eyes have overlapping fields of vision, for without this they can't triangulate and use parallax, which is how stereo depth perception works.  In fact, a greater separation between them improves stereo depth perception, as it gives a longer baseline for triangulation and parallax.  With most skull shapes though, the eyes have to be relatively close together to provide the overlapping fields of vision.