Chapter 5: The Iron Kite with a Net Weight of Taels

This kite is a dark-colored subspecies, and is very large. When Gui Longming picked it from the net and held it in his hand, it weighed about seven and a half taels.

The head has a bit of an eagle-like appearance, with a broad chest, thin wings that are tightly clasped, and claws with four fingers forming a cross, with a good grip. At first glance, the thickness of the claws is almost as thick as that of a chickhawk (male goshawk).

What surprised Yue Feng the most was that this kite not only looked like an eagle, but its feathers also had a story behind them.

The feathers on its back do not have the golden edges of a sub-adult sparrowhawk. Instead, it is completely black, and on its chest are the kind of blue-gray horizontal stripes that only appear on a sophomore eagle after it has shed its feathers.

From a professional perspective of falconry, this blue hawk has a very solid body, smooth feathers and an excellent skeleton structure. Combined with its weight of about 150 grams, it can easily catch prey ranging from sparrows to turtledoves, sandpipers, and greyhounds after being trained.

To describe this eagle using the terminology from the eagle catalog, it is a true Harrier.

Carefully taking off the hanging net, Yue Feng took out a sock with a hole in it from his pocket and directly wrapped the big blue kite up. The head poked out from the hole, and the whole eagle seemed to be wrapped in a cloak.

The socks have a certain degree of elasticity, and are perfect for temporarily restraining an eagle that has just fallen out of the net. With its wings pursed close to its body and its claws stretched out against its tail feathers, Yue Feng took out a strip of cotton cloth and simply wrapped it around its legs and tail twice to tie them up. The little eagle was completely captured.

After catching the kite he wanted, Yue Feng simply packed up the riding cage and the rolling cage, then headed towards home with the little hawk flattened.

This eagle that had just been netted should have been in an extremely frightened and stressed state. At the slightest disturbance, it would have screamed rapidly to release its panic. However, this great blue kite behaved quite well on its way home.

It just screamed a few times when it was first held in Yue Feng’s hand, and in the second half it was held in Yue Feng’s hand without making a sound, with its eyes rolling around looking around.

It was only nine forty when they got home. Yue Feng called his mother for help, and the two of them worked together to dress the eagle with the three-piece eagle-tie suit that they had prepared in advance. After the big blue kite stretched its body for a short time, Yue Feng wrapped it up again with a torn sock and flattened it in his hands.

As the old saying goes, big eagles are afraid of being boiled, and small eagles are afraid of being flattened. What does being flattened mean? It is very simple to explain. Just hold it gently in your hand.

When the little eagle gradually gets used to the state of being restrained and is no longer afraid, it means that the familiarity between the human and the eagle has been raised to a higher level.

Kites are always released flat, that is, after finding the prey, the hawk’s arms are flattened and thrown out. The hawk will use the help of the hawk’s handle to fly out quickly and catch the locked prey.

In the flat-release method, because there is an additional human throwing action, the initial speed of the falcon when it attacks is very fast, which greatly improves the success rate of hunting.

After finishing the Liangkai and Toad Five Feet parts, Yue Feng dipped the little eagle in some water and made some adjustments. Then he held the eagle in his left hand and walked around the house.

The eagle was caught in the net just a few dozen meters away from Yue Feng. It took no more than five minutes from the time the net was lowered to the time it was tightened, so the damage to the eagle was minimal. After Yue Feng gave the eagle water, he didn’t need to worry about anything else for the next short period of time.

When a live eagle is cast into the net, its fat is round. The chest of this big blue kite feels very thick. As long as its chest is not dry and lacks water, it will not be worried about starving in a short period of time.

Yue Feng’s plan was simple. The three sparrows in the cage were the food reserve for the eagle before it went out hunting. If everything went well, it should be able to recognize prey in three or four days. After the first successful hunt, the eagle could feed itself and fill its stomach with the prey it caught.

Yue Feng spent the next whole day in the state of squeezing the kite. His father Yue Lei was quite interested in the big blue kite Yue Feng caught. After lunch, he helped Yue Feng squeezing it for a while. After Yue Feng took over again in the afternoon, he kept squeezing it in his socks until the evening. When it gradually darkened, Yue Feng had dinner and untied the kite that had been tied up for a whole day.

Yue Feng was seen wearing a thick work glove on his right hand, with the five-foot glove wrapped around his fingers for several times. He grasped the two openings that were tied to the little eagle’s legs and spread out his palm.

The big blue kite, which had been lying motionless in Yue Feng’s hand, slowly straightened up as Yue Feng shook his palm slightly, and then stood up steadily.

In the professional terminology of falconry, this is called getting the hang of it!

As long as the eagle can get the hang of things, even if its affinity has reached the primary level, it means that the eagle has become initially accustomed to the presence of humans and is no longer in a state of extreme panic and struggle.

Of course, it was Yue Feng’s trick to let the eagle stand firmly. It was dark and there was only oil lamp lighting in the room. The eagle could not see the surrounding environment clearly and was naturally braver.

Yue Feng adjusted the angle of his arm to hold the hawk, and the kite stood smoothly on the position of Yue Feng’s thumb. There was a thicker piece of leather at this position on the thickened work gloves, so if the kite’s claws suddenly exerted force, the damage to people would be less.

Soon, the blue kite stood firmly on the hand, its fur quickly became fluffy, and then immediately stuck close again.

Yue Feng was quick to move his body slightly sideways, and saw the little eagle sticking out its butt, and with a whoosh, a white arrow of water shot out with great force behind it.

The eagle is coming!

Because it had replenished water several times during the day, this eagle poop was in very good condition.

In fact, Yue Feng’s main purpose in untying the eagle was to let it lie flat. There was nothing wrong with the eagle being flat in his hands, but the eagle had just been taken out of the net that day, so its stomach must not have been emptied yet. If it held its poop for too long, it would easily cause minor problems.

The big blue kite, which had just pooped, was in better condition than before. Its two long legs stood straight in Yue Feng’s hand, and its tail was gathered into a stick, tightly attached to the back of his hand. The whole eagle looked very domineering when standing in his hand.

“Hehe! The green kite you tied today doesn’t look bad!” Dad Yue Lei tilted his head and glanced at the falcon in his son’s hand, and sighed while smoking his pipe.

“It’s really good. It’s big, with thin arms and big claws. Look at the big rings of this eagle, it’s almost as big as a chicken eagle!” Yue Feng felt very pleased with his father’s evaluation and showed off in front of his father in a somewhat ostentatious manner.

Yue Lei is not as proficient in falconry training as Yue Feng. When his grandfather was still alive, he asked him to learn it. He always felt that falconry hunting in small areas was not as exciting as hunting in large areas with dogs and guns. But even if he is not proficient, he still knows the basics from what he has seen and heard.

Yue Lei nodded and asked, “How many days do you plan to be out? Do you want to change shifts in the middle of the night, and I can help you for a few hours? I remember the old people said that you have to stay up all night to train the eagle, right?”

Yue Feng shook his head: “The little eagle doesn’t need to be tortured. Just wrap it tightly with socks and flatten it. Flatten it at home for a day tomorrow. The day after tomorrow there will be a big market in Wangzhuang Village. I will take it to make a living for a day, then go home and start feeding it, and flatten it again in the evening.

If everything goes well, it will be time to start the sex after the shaft is out the day after tomorrow morning! Then we will hang up the string and try to make a hawk with live sparrows! We will try to put the hawk on after we use up these three sparrows!”

(End of this chapter)