For anyone who’s ever fed birds in a public space, meet this little girl who did one better―stealing food from a bird, clearly a dangerous and daring game. In a GIF that went viral on Twitter on Friday, this little girl (with her mom nearby) waits for a bird to fly over and nab a bit of food, before grasping the bird’s head with catlike reflexes, plucking the food out of its mouth, and taking it for herself.
Game, set, match.
I've watched this GIF at least 100 times now, cry-laughing the entire time. pic.twitter.com/Hih7VJe28T
— Helen 侯-Sandí (@helenhousandi) February 23, 2018
Since the GIF was tweeted by Helen Hou-Sandi on Friday, it’s been retweeted more than 277,000 times and “liked” more than 470,000 times, staggering numbers. It’s not hard to see why, however; few people have the reflexes, guile, and courage to successfully burglarize food right from a bird’s mouth, much less a little kid.
Maybe that’s partly why this bold act of banditry paid off. The bird can’t react quickly to that which it doesn’t expect. And it’s probably safe to say that it’s a lot more used to eating food out of people’s hands than having somebody’s hand plucking food right from its beak.
So congratulations to this little girl, although she might want to be careful―bird bites are painful, and she’s already flown pretty close to the sun.