Chapter 57: Preparation Before Hunting Great Eagle, Catching the Watchbird
To catch Great Eagle, a few cage nets under the small woods by the River won't suffice. You need to go to the most prominent mountain tops with the best terrain and properly set up new hunting grounds.
If you're lucky, you might encounter a suitable eagle after one or two days on the mountain. If you're unlucky, you might stay on the mountain for ten days to half a month, catch a bunch of 'poop eagles', but not encounter a single proper one.
Catching Great Eagle is difficult. Even after catching Great Eagle, training it is also a five-star difficulty endeavor.
Any Great Eagle netted that year will weigh between 2.1-2.2 jin and 2.4-2.5 jin. A healthy eagle just off the net, given only water and no food, can easily endure for ten days to half a month.
The ten days to half a month mentioned here is not the kind where you carry the eagle during the day and sleep at night.
Instead, it's ten days to half a month of almost sleeplessness. The better the eagle's physique and the tougher its temperament, the longer this 'taming' period will be.
Yue Feng also encountered an eagle that only ate properly after half a month of taming in his previous life. That eagle took a full 21 days from being netted to becoming a working eagle on the ground.
Yue Feng definitely couldn't endure such a long time alone. His father's leg injury hasn't fully healed yet, and Yue Feng doesn't want him to overexert himself.
Forget it, forget it, forget it. Since he promised, he'll just have to grit his teeth and do it. At worst, he can let Mom and Dad take turns substituting for him. Ten days to half a month, he can grit his teeth and get through it.
After Yue Feng made up his mind, when he got home and ate with his friends in the evening, Yue Feng brought up the matter publicly.
"For the next period, our falconry team's mission will have a slight change. I'm letting everyone know in advance!"
"What's up, Feng Ge?" Xiao Tao was the first to ask.
"Second Canteen wants live pheasants and rabbits, and I agreed!
So for the next period, I'll be staying on the mountain for a few days, three to five days at the shortest, seven to ten days at the longest! I'll come back when I catch Great Eagle!
During the time I'm on the mountain catching Great Eagle, the daily delivery work at home will temporarily be Xiao Tao's responsibility. For the Da Qing Yao I've always kept, you few people take turns flying it one day each. You can't let the eagle be completely idle, or it will revert to its wild state!"
"You're going up the mountain to catch Great Eagle? Let me go with you! Let my Dad handle the delivery!" Xiao Tao said, shamelessly stepping forward after hearing this.
"No need. The good days for catching birds in early autumn are short. I can manage by myself. You guys should take advantage of the abundance of birds now, which makes them easy to catch, and catch more to earn more money!
After the big temperature drop, going up the mountain to catch small birds will be much more difficult than now!
I'm temporarily stopping production to catch eagles. The household income still relies on everyone's daily harvest. Don't slack off!"
Yue Lei nodded at this point: "Mom, Li Shu, and I are here at home, so don't worry! What do you need to prepare? We'll start arranging it for you tomorrow!"
"Four sets of 16 pieces of Great Eagle self-falling net sections, five fingers wide! One set of hand-pulled net, six meters long and two and a half meters wide! Tomorrow I'll go catch a Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La), and then go to my Qian Er Ge's house to buy a few spotted pigeons. That should be enough! I'll come back every day and replenish whatever's missing!" Yue Feng calculated on his fingers.
"Okay, what size do you need for the self-falling net sections?"
"One meter fifty long and one meter twenty wide is enough!"
"Got it!"
...
After the simple team meeting, Yue Feng's matter of going up the mountain to catch Great Eagle was settled.
The next day, just as dawn broke, Yue Feng left home carrying a shovel.
To catch Great Eagle, before heading up the mountain, you must catch a Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) to act as a watchbird. When an eagle passes by the hunting ground, the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) will detect the raptor in the air in advance and warn the eagle hunter.
The Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) bird is fond of eating mole crickets.
Yue Feng left home carrying a shovel early in the morning, not even stopping to eat, just to catch mole crickets in the fields while there was dew.
Yue Feng had done this many times in his previous life; one could say it was as easy as picking something up by hand. Near the soil mounds where mole crickets were active in the fields, he turned the soil with the large shovel and quickly caught six or seven live mole crickets.
With the mole crickets, Yue Feng then went to places like the fields outside the village and the edge of the woods, setting up six dangling leg snares for catching birds.
This type of snare was taught to him by Yue Feng's Grandpa. Two slightly longer branches are inserted into the soil, then one end of a rope is fixed to one branch, and a slip knot is made at the other end of the rope. A live mole cricket is tied with half a wing and suspended in mid-air. Below the live mole cricket is the noose, held in place by a mechanism using a horizontal stick and a thin stick.
A live mole cricket suspended in mid-air will constantly struggle, easily attracting the attention of shrikes. When the greedy shrike flies over to eat the mole cricket, it will easily step onto the horizontal stick deliberately placed by the hunter for the shrike to land on.
As soon as the bird steps on it, the balance of force on the horizontal stick is broken, triggering the originally taut noose mechanism, and the noose immediately traps the shrike's foot.
As long as there are shrikes active nearby, using this method to catch shrikes is almost foolproof.
After Yue Feng caught enough mole crickets, he went around the areas outside the village where shrikes might be, set up the mechanisms, and then went home to eat.
After eating breakfast, everyone else took their eagles out to hunt on the mountain, while Yue Feng found thick cotton thread and made a collar for tying the shrike on the edge of the heated brick bed.
Yes, you read that right. When raising a shrike as a watchbird, you don't tie its leg; you tie its neck.
Unlike raptors, shrikes have very little strength in their talons. Tying the leg can easily dislocate the hip, but tying the neck avoids these problems.
After Yue Feng finished making the collar, he put on a pair of work gloves and left home, checking the yield of each mechanism one by one.
The first two mechanisms weren't triggered. When inspecting the third mechanism, he heard the distinctive cawing sound of a brown shrike from a distance.
He caught one! At that moment, the unlucky bird's foot was caught in the slip knot, and it was flying in circles around the pole stuck in the ground.
Seeing this, Yue Feng didn't dare to be careless. He put on his work gloves and quickly walked over.
Although this shrike is not a raptor, the sharpness of its beak is even more formidable than that of a typical small eagle. Not only does the tip of its beak have a hook like a raptor's, but it also has tooth-like notches similar to those found only in falcons. If bitten without protection, you're definitely going to bleed.
Yue Feng, wearing gloves, went over and grabbed the adult male shrike. He held the bird's body in his hand, leaving its entire neck and forehead exposed.
After removing the noose from its leg, Yue Feng took out the collar he had made at home from his pocket and tied it directly onto the shrike. He then collected all the other mechanisms and took the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) back home.
A freshly caught wild Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) has a very strong temper. Trying to get it to perch on your hand or a stand obediently is as difficult as ascending to heaven.
However, Yue Feng has a secret technique.
Yue Feng tied the collar rope to the perch, then fetched a washbasin and filled it with clear water using a scoop.
Third update today. Starting tomorrow, it will be on the second round of recommendations. Your votes of support from 'godfathers' are urgently needed!!
