I Wonder What Is Going On In His Mind?

My neighbor has a huge mirror in her garden which when you look directly at it from her living room gives the illusion of her garden being bigger.

I think it is a very ingenious way of making a small area appear bigger, a way of deceiving the eyes.  This is particularly useful in UK where the average size of a room shrinks by the minute and most houses look (and like match boxes).

One of my windows overlooks her garden and one day something caught my eye. It was a pretty colorful bird that was acting very strangely in front of the mirror. He seemed agitated and kept thrashing around. Initially, I thought he was probably hurt but he did not appear to be harmed. This of course piqued my curiosity even further and I sat watching it. He kept hitting the mirror again and again and perching back on the cord in front of the mirror.

Bird in a garden

After what seemed like eternity it dawned on me that he was actually baffled by his own reflection and was obviously not having any other bird that looks like him getting into his territory. Lots of animals do that too. I have seen several videos on Facebook of cats and dogs fighting their reflections.

As I sat watching him I could not help but wonder what was going on in his tiny brain? Why do they react like that?