This is a pine cone with frost on its back.

The back and main wings of the common sparrowhawk are blue-gray in color. The feathers of this sparrowhawk, on the basis of blue-gray, also emit a hazy silver halo.

It sounds quite mysterious. It’s just a feather, but why is there a halo involved? Do you think it’s a game that amplifies equipment with light and shadow effects?

I can say responsibly that although the light and shadow effects are not as exaggerated, the color and texture of the feathers are indeed different from those of ordinary sub-adult eagles.

As mentioned earlier, the ability of an eagle will determine how well it eats in the wild, and the quantity and quality of food will affect the replacement of its body feathers.

The best quality falcons have better quality feathers. Except for the old hair on the tail which has been replaced, the other feathers on the body will also show more or less.

These pine nuts with a layer of frost on their feathers usually only appear on the back feathers of a very small number of adult sparrowhawks.

In the eyes of knowledgeable falconers, this appearance represents the falcon’s top-notch physical fitness and hunting skills.

After Yue Feng saw the color of the pine nut’s feathers, he quickly squatted down and picked it off the cage net.

I looked at the eagle carefully with its wings folded, and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it.

It has a pretty beady mouth, a clever head, persimmon eyes that are lighter in color than pomegranate eyes, slightly thick nostrils, and the wax on the wings of its nose is slightly bluish. Almost all of the exquisite qualities are concentrated in this little eagle.

After looking at the head and face, look at the breast. The breast is very light in color, the rare light-colored fragrant ash breast. The sides of the prothorax are extremely broad and strong, the wings are tightly attached to the sides of the body, the wing feathers are of excellent quality, and you can hear the rustling sound of friction when they are spread out.

This good eagle does not need to work in the fields, and anyone who knows how to use it can feel it immediately.

Holding the eagle in the hand is like holding a round little hammer, and its body is extremely round and solid.

Looking at the eagle’s claws and tail, the claws are separated into a cross, thick and powerful, and the surface of the claws is covered with light blue-brown scales, which are similar to the wax of the nose wings, reflecting the body’s extremely high metabolic capacity.

All twelve tail feathers are newly grown adult feathers, and even the fine feathers around the waist have almost faded away, leaving only a few scattered hairs.

If we use mathematical percentages to describe the feather renewal status of this current top-grade falcon, 99.5% has been replaced, leaving only a tiny bit.

If a falconer with poorer eyesight were to take the place of the young eagle, there is even a possibility that he would mistake it for a mature pine nut.

What a great pure pine nut!

“Hehehe! What a fun thing! Not bad luck, not bad luck! Today’s harvest is good! This little eagle is so good in every way! “

After Yue Feng carefully looked around at the clean-feathered, top-quality pine nut, he quickly took out his eagle coat, tied up the little eagle, and then carefully put it in his pocket.

After rearranging the riding cage net, Yue Feng continued to check the next net.

Before dark, hundreds of birds fly into the forest, and the probability of an eagle hitting the net is really high.

Of the next three nets, two more caught eagles.

A useless waxnose (scientific name: Red-bellied Eagle, the eagle among small eagles, similar in size to the sparrowhawk, but with very different hunting skills. In the wild, it feeds on grasshoppers, toads, mice and small insects. It is not suitable for training because the wax film on its nose is a conspicuous orange-yellow color as its main distinguishing feature)
In another photo on the Internet, another flower was caught showing its chest.

This female sparrowhawk was slightly larger than the one in the morning. It had eight new tail feathers and a sturdier frame. Its weight was estimated to be close to three and a half taels. It was definitely one of the biggest birds in the day.

In one day, four eaglets, two males and two females, were caught, including a rare one covered with frost and pine nuts. Yue Feng was very happy with this harvest.

After tightening the eagle’s coat and restoring the net to its original state, Yue Feng did not even take the bird in the cage and happily returned home.

After dinner, Yue Feng called all the members of the hunting team home.

Recently, apart from going up the mountain to help Grandpa Zhao with work at the breeding farm, everyone has been relatively relaxed most of the time, but now it’s time to work.

Xiao Tao looked at the pine nut standing on Yue Feng’s hand with his hat on and asked, “Brother, why did you call us over? Is there a new mission?

I need some help from you guys. I haven’t been out on the mountain to fly hawks in the spring, and I’m almost bored at home!”

Yue Feng smiled and said, “Before you came into the house, did you see the little eagles tied to the eagle pole? I caught them in the woods today!

Starting tomorrow morning, you guys will start training the newly captured eaglet!”

“Are you planning to let us train these little eagles?” Xiaowen was quite surprised after hearing Yue Feng’s words.

Last autumn, whether it was a big eagle or a kite, it was basically all trained by Yue Feng and his father Yue Lei. Among the three members of the hunting team, only Xiao Tao lent a hand when Yue Feng was training the big eagle to become a falcon. The eagles released by the brothers Xiaowen and Xiaowu were all trained.

Although the skill of falcon training is not a great one, it is enough to support a family if you master it well. The guys are brothers, and it is not a glorious thing to want to steal someone’s skills without the relationship of master and apprentice.

In this era, if you want to learn any skill that can make a living, you have to pay a high price. It is very common to kowtow to a master, or even to be an apprentice for several years.

Unexpectedly, in the spring when the eagle eagles are catching their young, the hunting team leader Yue Feng actually wants his brothers to help train eagles. This is tantamount to teaching them the real skills of eagle training in disguise. No wonder Xiaowen is so excited.

Yue Feng smiled and nodded: “You bastard, don’t you want to learn?”

“No, no, learn, why not learn! The skill of falcon training is a family heirloom in your family after all, I’m just afraid…” Xiaowen shook his head repeatedly, hesitating to speak.

“What’s there to be afraid of? This little eagle is easy to manipulate. It will be ready in a day or two, and can be put up in three days!
We brothers have all experienced the test of life and death. If you are willing to learn, I will naturally not hide it.

But I’ll make it clear first, I’ll teach you this job, but you can’t tell anyone else, not even your relatives or friends!” Yue Feng gave them a heads-up before making the official arrangements.

“Of course! There’s no reason to pass on the skills I learned from Brother Feng to others at will!” Xiaowu also nodded.

Seeing that everyone was very excited, Yue Feng nodded and said, “Each of you can claim one of these three eagles. Gather at my house at five o’clock tomorrow morning, and then I will tell you what to do next!
My plan this year is bigger than last fall. As the main force of the hunting team, you have to put in more effort!”

“Huh? Brother, what are you going to do? Are you going to expand the size of the hunting team?” When Xiao Tao heard this, he immediately asked curiously.

Yue Feng nodded: “Yes! Uncle Chen and I agreed before the New Year that we would form a new falconry team in the surrounding villages!

It is definitely risky to teach the falconry technique rashly. In addition to making some money, the process of falconry this spring is also a process of selecting suitable candidates for the falconry team!

According to my plan, I will catch more than 20 young eagles during this period of time, and then gather all the people in the surrounding villages who are suitable for cooperation, so that we can work together to make money!”

“So many young eagles…are there enough prey for us to catch?”

During the hunting season last autumn, the continuous hunting by the eagles in our family caused great damage to the prey resources in dozens of hills and ridges around the back mountain. When we went up the mountain again after the New Year, the daily harvest was obviously much less.

If we roughly apply the situation of releasing hawks to hunt small enclosures in autumn, the hunting team will suddenly develop a team of more than 20 young hawks, and prey density will indeed be a problem.

Yue Feng had already thought about this question. When asked, he said, “Yes! And no less than that!”

In another ten days or half a month, the sparrows and other small birds in the first nest will begin to leave the nest one after another! This will continue until the end of summer, when these small birds will breed! A pair of parent birds will hatch and breed at least one or two nests a year.

Our area is a major grain-producing area. You have seen the flocks of birds every autumn. If we let the eagles roam free, we won’t have to worry about catching prey.

These twenty or so falcons may sound like a lot, but the number of small birds such as sparrows is much larger. Streets, alleys, fields, and places where small birds are active are all good places to release falcons.

Now that the team is formed, you guys won’t need to do the work of releasing the hawks yourselves. You just need to gather the harvest at a fixed time and place!

In addition, there will definitely be a certain percentage of losses among these twenty or so eagles, including the accidental death of falcons, escape, or injury and elimination. Overall, it will be fine if we can achieve 60% to 70% of the expected level!

As for the new members who can stay and join the hunting team after the selection of the young eagle season, I will only keep three to five people. When we go up the mountain to release eagles, the range we can cover is only a few dozen miles of mountains and forests around. The location of other villages leads to more prey resources in the back mountains, which is enough for these new members to explore! Now we have motorcycles, and we can radiate farther! ! “

Xiaowen continued to ask: “Well, how much should we pay for that sparrow? It’s so small and there’s not much meat on it!
If the price is too low, people won’t be motivated to fly hawks because they can’t make money. If the price is too high, we will lose money and it won’t be worth it! ”

Yue Feng: “I have asked Master Niu before. This sparrow-sized bird is actually rarer than the flying dragon sand half chicken when it comes to cooking in the cafeteria. After all, there is no good way to catch it, and few people in the market sell it in a long-term and stable manner.

Occasionally, there are large quantities of them sold, but they are also poisoned with bait, posing a safety hazard.

If we can supply a large quantity of live birds, Master Niu can offer them at a high price of four to five cents per bird!

For now, let’s assume that the purchase price of a sparrow is two cents to two and a half cents, and that it can be sold in the city for four to five cents.

It is easy to spend a few hours releasing hawks, and if you catch twenty hawks a day, you can earn only 40 or 50 cents.

After a month, I can earn more than ten yuan. There are many people willing to do it! “(End of this chapter)