Chapter 60: The High-Quality Iron-backed Red
He saw the Great Eagle spread its wings and fly towards the southwest. Illuminated by the morning light, its wings were a golden yellow.
"It's really beautiful!"
Yue Feng couldn't help but exclaim in his heart. Then, he lowered his head to check the pigeons that had been thoroughly frightened. After confirming that they were fine, he rehung the net piece of the drop net.
With the Great Leopard as a good start this morning, his luck was clearly much better than yesterday.
A northwest wind of about three to four grades blew in the sky, and the number of raptors increased.
Around ten o'clock in the morning, Yue Feng was squatting in the shelter, staring at the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) when he saw the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) suddenly shrink its neck and become nervous again.
As usual, Yue Feng pulled the lure with his left hand, causing the pigeon to flap its wings a few times. The next second, the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La), which had already tucked in its neck, suddenly scurried down the perch a few steps, and with a plop, jumped directly into the air-raid shelter Yue Feng had dug for it in advance, remaining motionless.
Through the gap in the shelter, Yue Feng observed carefully. A subadult Northern Goshawk was circling about twenty to thirty meters above the field.
At this height, he could vaguely see the outline of the raptor in the air, as well as the iconic wingtips on both sides of its wings.
There is a brief process from when an eagle discovers prey to when it locks onto the prey and circles to observe. Falconers call this behavior 'setting the lure'.
Although raptors are at the top of the food chain in the wild, they are still very careful and cautious when hunting, especially when hunting outside their territory. Initial observation is definitely essential.
Seeing this, Yue Feng pulled the rope tied to the lure pigeon with his left hand again. Pulled by the rope, the pigeon, although scared, still instinctively flapped its wings to maintain balance.
The next second, he saw the Northern Goshawk in mid-air, after circling above the pigeon's head and slightly to the southeast, fold its wings and dive straight down.
In an instant, just as the Northern Goshawk was about to hit the ground during its dive, Yue Feng suddenly pulled the main rope of the net.
The net surface flipped over with a swish, directly trapping the diving Northern Goshawk firmly.
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp
A series of rapid, sharp eagle cries sounded. Yue Feng put on his gloves and came out of the shelter.
"Haha, officially open for business, a young eagle!" Yue Feng laughed excitedly and immediately went to check the eagle caught in the net.
A young eagle is a subadult Northern Goshawk that has just left the nest that year. Its overall feather color is significantly different from that of an adult Northern Goshawk.
The main color of a subadult Northern Goshawk is yellow. Depending on the origin and subspecies, based on the basic color of grass yellow, there can also be tendencies towards white, red, purple, green, and other different color systems.
The subadult Northern Goshawk caught in the net now is a common bean yellow hawk. When Yue Feng walked closer and examined it, he was slightly disappointed despite his excitement.
This is a male Northern Goshawk.
As mentioned before, a male Northern Goshawk is the male individual among Northern Goshawks. Raptors are generally larger in females and smaller in males, and the male Northern Goshawk is no exception. A male Northern Goshawk cannot catch Rabbits, so it is not Yue Feng's first choice.
However, this is a genuine Hunting Eagle after all, and Yue Feng's falconry shop has just opened, so he was reluctant to let it go just like that. He simply put on his gloves, opened the net, and took the eagle out.
He took out an eagle jacket from his person, wrapped this little yellow eagle in it, and then tied it tightly at the bottom. After checking that the lure was not injured, Yue Feng restored the eagle net to its normal ready-to-trigger state, then took the eagle back to the shelter.
This little eagle weighed about one pound and three or four ounces in hand. Its feather color was ordinary, and its size, height, and weight were also ordinary. At first glance, it was like a random ordinary person picked out of a crowd, with neither obvious shortcomings nor obvious advantages.
However, upon closer inspection, some advantages could be found. The little eagle's frame was quite solid, and its claws, wings, and other structures were good.
Yue Feng moved the position of his backpack to the side and then placed this little yellow eagle aside.
The falconry field became quiet again. The Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La), which had just plunged into the air-raid shelter, had now regained its spirits.
He saw it move from the bottom section of the perch section by section to the tip of the perch, then stretched its wings, extended its neck, fluffed up its feathers, excreted a small lump of feces, and wagged its tail bit by bit, appearing quite relaxed.
Yue Feng remembered that he hadn't fed it yet this morning. He took out a strip of meat wrapped in a cabbage leaf from his backpack and handed it to the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La).
The previous second, this Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) was still lively and active. Upon seeing the meat strip, its whole body tensed up, its eyes fixed on Yue Feng's hand. When the meat strip was brought closer, it extended its neck and snatched the meat strip in one bite.
The Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La)'s beak is very sharp, but its claws have no strength. It also eats meat in the wild, and small frogs, lizards, mice, small birds, etc., are all on its menu.
It has a very notorious habit of liking to hang its prey on thorns or other similar structures to fix it, and then tear off the meat bit by bit with its mouth.
Because of this habit, the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) also has a nickname, called the butcher bird.
The Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) that received the meat strip was in this state at the moment. Although it could swallow the meat strip in one gulp by tilting its head back, it insisted on tearing it into small pieces to eat. After trying a few times with the meat strip in its beak, it hung it on a nail tip that Yue Feng had specially hammered into the front end of the perch, and then began to eat with a sense of ritual.
Yue Feng had no other entertainment in the shelter, so he just watched the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La) tear the meat to eat. After finishing one strip of meat, Yue Feng gave it another.
Before the second strip of meat was even finished, he saw the Tiger-not-Pull (Hu Bu La), which had been eating meat with its tail sticking out the previous second, suddenly plunge into the air-raid shelter below, like a ten-meter high dive.
Yue Feng didn't even have time to react when he saw a pale purple shadow swish diagonally from the south towards the sun, grabbing the lure in the center of the eagle field in one go.
The lure was tied to a wooden stake on the ground. The eagle, holding the pigeon, wanted to fly away, but was dragged by the rope on the pigeon's foot and couldn't pull it away immediately. This gave Yue Feng time to react.
Yue Feng's mind was blank at this moment, relying entirely on reflexes to pull the eagle net rope, once again trapping the second eagle under the net.
There was the familiar sound of chirping, and Yue Feng rushed out of the shelter again.
From more than ten meters away, Yue Feng's eyes were attracted by the feather color of this eagle.
Illuminated by the sun, the eagle's feathers presented a dreamlike dark red color. The eagle was already trapped by the net, but at this moment, it was still desperately holding onto the pigeon on the ground, unwilling to give up its prize even at the risk of its life.
Yue Feng put on his gloves, controlled the eagle in the net, and then slowly took it out of the net.
What a magnificent Iron-backed Red.
White eyebrows, sculpted head, flat top, watery white eyes, and the feathers on its wings and back showed a color transition from deep red to pale purple.
The breast feathers on the chest had a rust-colored background with large and small vertical black spots scattered on them. As they went down to the abdomen, especially on the outer sides of the eagle's two large legs, these vertical spots slowly became larger, teardrop-shaped, like eyes representing death and slaughter.
Similar to the Da Qing Yao at Yue Feng's home, the feathers on the back did not have the common golden edges of nestling down, but were dark red like an adult eagle. The wings were short and wide, the shoulders were thin, and the large feathers were solid and of excellent quality.
The eagle's tail also complemented its overall body shape, being slightly shorter than that of an ordinary Great Eagle, with only three and a half sections of tail pattern (the standard for an ordinary Great Eagle's tail pattern is four sections; here, three and a half sections means that the length of one section is shorter than the other three).
Looking at the eagle's claws, the tibiotarsus was short and thick, the claws were large, the four toes formed a standard cross shape, the nails of the large ring were thick and measured close to four centimeters in length, and the tips of the claws were like daggers, with fresh red bloodstains left from grabbing the pigeon just now.
The Red Eagle's body was short and thick like a pestle, its claws and tibiotarsus were short, and its tail was also short.
This is the three-short Iron-backed Red from the eagle manual!
An eagle of this quality, if it were in the Qing Dynasty, would have been offered to the emperor!
Good! Too good! The Great Eagle for catching Rabbits and pheasants this year is here!!
This is the third chapter today. This eagle has a real-life prototype, and I still have photos. I'll find them later and post them for everyone to see.
Begging for votes, keep begging for votes! Training a Great Eagle to catch Rabbits is much more complicated than training a Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Female). Everyone, wait and see!