Do animals make mistakes?

 We civilized humans know it’s a mistake to anthropomorphize other animals. I smile when other people talk for their dogs, although I talk for mine all the time.

But I think that other species of animals have intentions because I think they make mistakes.

It’s a problem of concept and of logic, rather than one of fact. You can’t make a mistake — that is, do something you didn’t intend to do — if you aren’t cognitively capable of having intentions to begin with.

It seems obvious to me that animals make mistakes. Therefore, they must be capable of having intentions.

Lucas the cat misjudged a leap to the table where I feed him and landed badly.

Some bees in the garden mistook a flowered shirt for a source of food. It was a mistake, but they were persistent in their mistake.

A couple of winters ago, a pair of hawks followed the German shepherd and me for a mile as we went up the creek.

The female landed in a treetop, on a springy twig that had him bouncing like a man on a trampoline. The male then flew in, and then it was as if you had two people on the trampoline, trying to keep their balance.

Do hawks get disgusted? Is that anthropomorphism? The female hawk looked at her mate and flew to another tree.

I thought of the Yale experiment in which a pre-language toddler opened a closet door for a loved one who was pretending to be trying to get inside. Babies — before they acquire language — can read intentions. What about hawks?

Of course there is danger in thinking you know what’s in a hawk’s mind. I had been puzzled by the pair all morning. I have no idea what they were doing. I have no idea why the same birds followed us up the creek — or whether the  repeated sightings of the same birds was just a coincidence.

I noticed them because I was interested in what they were eating. I don’t even know that.

But it seems to me that the male thought that the little perch his mate had landed on was strong enough to support them both comfortably — and that thought was mistaken.

It’s probably just silly anthropomorphism, but I thought for an instant that hawks are also capable of disgust. For just that instant, I thought I could see it in her eyes.