Chapter 60: Top-quality Ironback Red

Then I saw the big eagle spread its wings and fly towards the southwest. In the morning light, its wings were golden.

“It’s so beautiful!”

Yue Feng couldn’t help but exclaim in his heart, then he lowered his head to check the frightened pigeons, and after confirming that there was no problem, he re-hung the net.

Thanks to the good start from Big Leopard this morning, our luck is obviously much better than yesterday.

A northwest wind of about level 3 or 4 was blowing in the sky, and more birds of prey appeared.

Around ten o’clock in the morning, Yue Feng was squatting in the shack and staring at Hubula, when he saw Hubula suddenly shrink his neck and become nervous again.

As usual, Yue Feng pulled the decoy with his left hand to make the pigeon flap its wings a few times. The next second, the Hubula, which had already shrunk its neck, suddenly jumped down a few steps along the standing pole, and with a plop, it jumped directly into the air-raid shelter that Yue Feng had dug for it in advance, and lay motionless.

Yue Feng took a careful look through the gap in the shack and saw a sub-adult goshawk hovering about 20 to 30 meters above the field.

At this height, you can already vaguely see the outline of the bird of prey in the air and the iconic wing fingers on both sides of its wings.

There is a short process from the time a hawk discovers its prey to the time it locks onto its prey and hovers over it for observation. Falconers call this behavior “setting a lure.”

Although birds of prey are at the top of the food chain in the wild, they are still very cautious when hunting, especially when hunting outside of their own territory, and preliminary observation is definitely essential.

Seeing this, Yue Feng pulled the rope tied to the bait pigeon with his left hand again. Although the pigeon was afraid, it still flapped its wings instinctively to keep its balance.

The next second, the goshawk in the air was seen circling above the pigeon’s head, slightly to the southeast, then it folded its wings and dived straight down.

It happened in a flash. At the moment when the goshawk swooped down and was close to the ground, Yue Feng suddenly pulled the main rope of the net.

The net surface suddenly turned upside down and directly caught the swooping goshawk.

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A series of rapid and sharp eagle cries were heard, and Yue Feng put on gloves and left the shack.

“Haha, it’s officially open, an eagle!!” Yue Feng laughed excitedly and immediately went to check the eagle caught in the net.

A young hawk is a sub-adult goshawk that has just left the nest. Its overall feather color is very different from that of an adult goshawk.

The main body color of the sub-adult goshawk is yellow. Depending on the subspecies from which they originate, the body may have different color tendencies such as white, red, purple, or green based on the grass yellow color.

The sub-adult goshawk that was caught was an ordinary bean-yellow eagle. When Yue Feng approached it and took a look at it, he felt excited but also a little disappointed.

This is a chicken hawk.

As mentioned before, the chicken hawk is the male of the goshawk. The female is larger than the male in birds of prey, and the same is true for the chicken hawk. The chicken hawk cannot catch rabbits, so it is not Yue Feng’s first choice.

But this was a real falcon after all. Yue Feng’s falconry shop had just opened, so he couldn’t bear to let it go. He simply put on gloves, opened the net, and plucked the eagle out.

He took out the eagle coat, wrapped it around the little yellow eagle, and tied it tightly. After checking that the decoy was not damaged, Yue Feng restored the eagle net to its normal triggering state, and then took the eagle back to the shack.

This little eagle weighs about 1.34 pound, has ordinary feathers, and is of ordinary size and weight. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary person picked out of the crowd, with neither obvious shortcomings nor obvious advantages.

However, if you look closely, you can find some advantages. The skeleton of this little eagle is quite solid, and its claws, wings and other structures are all in good condition.

Yue Feng moved the backpack to the side and then put the little yellow eagle aside.

The falconry field returned to silence, and the tiger that had just dived into the air-raid shelter regained its spirits. It was seen moving from the bottom of the pole to the top of the pole, then stretching its arms and neck, pooping a little with its feathers fluffed up, and its tail twitching, looking quite relaxed.

Yue Feng remembered that he had not fed it in the morning, so he took out a piece of meat wrapped in a cabbage leaf from his backpack and handed it to the shrike.

The last second, this tiger was still lively and active, but when he saw the strip of meat, all the hair on his body tightened and he stared at Yue Feng’s hand. When the strip of meat was brought to him, he stretched out his neck and grabbed the strip of meat.

The shrike’s mouth is very sharp, but its claws are not very powerful. It also eats meat in the wild. Small frogs, lizards, mice, and small birds are all on its menu.

It has a notorious habit of hanging its prey on spikes or other similar structures, and then tearing the meat apart with its mouth.

Because of its habit, the shrike has another nickname, called the butcher bird.

The shrike that took the piece of meat was in this state at the moment. It could obviously swallow the piece of meat in one bite by tilting its head back, but it insisted on tearing the piece of meat into pieces and eating it. After trying several times with the piece of meat in its mouth, it hung it on the tip of a nail that Yue Feng had specially hammered into the front end of the pole, and then began to eat it with a sense of ritual.

Yue Feng had nothing to do in the shack, so he just watched the shrike tearing meat and eating it. After it finished one piece of meat, Yue Feng gave it another one.

Before the second piece of meat was finished, the shrike, which had been eating the meat a second ago, suddenly dived into the air-raid shelter below as if diving ten meters deep.

Before Yue Feng even had time to react, he saw a lavender shadow swooping over from the south towards the sun and grabbing the decoy in the middle of the eagle farm.

The decoy was tied to a wooden stake on the ground. The eagle grabbed the pigeon and wanted to fly away, but was caught by the rope under the pigeon’s feet and was not pulled away immediately. This gave Yue Feng time to react.

Yue Feng’s mind was blank at the moment. He relied entirely on conditioned reflex to pull the rope of the eagle net and caught the second eagle under the net again.

There was the familiar chirping sound again, and Yue Feng rushed out of the shack again.

Even though he was more than ten meters away, Yue Feng was attracted by the color of the eagle’s feathers.

Under the sunlight, the eagle’s feathers appeared a dreamy dark red color. The eagle had been caught in the net, but at this moment it still held on to the pigeon on the ground tightly at the risk of its life.

Yue Feng put on gloves to control the eagle in the net, and then slowly took it out of the net.

What a great Red Eagle.

It has white eyebrows, a eagle head, a flat top, watery white eyes, and feathers on its wings and back that transition from deep red to lavender.

The breast pattern on the front chest has a rust-colored background with large and small vertical black spots on it. As the abdomen moves downward, especially on the outside of the eagle’s thighs, the black spots on the vertical lines gradually become larger and teardrop-shaped, like eyes representing death and killing.

It is a bit similar to the blue kite at Yuefeng’s home. The feathers on its back do not have the golden edges common in chicks, but are dark red like an adult eagle. The wings are short and wide, the wings are thin, and the large feathers are solid and have excellent texture.

The eagle’s tail also matches its overall body shape. It is slightly shorter than that of an ordinary eagle, with only three and a half sections (the standard tail of an ordinary eagle is four sections, and the three and a half sections here means that one section is shorter than the other three sections).

Look at the eagle’s claw again. The tibia is short and thick, the claw is huge, and the four fingers are in a standard cross shape. The nails of the large ring are thick and the length is estimated to be close to four centimeters. The tip of the claw is like a dagger, and there are traces of bright red blood left from catching the pigeon just now.

The red eagle has a short and thick body like a hammer, short claws, short tibia, and a short tail.

This is the Iron-backed Red Three-horned Eagle in the Eagle Tree List!

If an eagle of this quality were to be brought to the Qing Dynasty, it would be presented as a tribute to the emperor!
Good! Great! This year, we have a big eagle that catches rabbits and pheasants! !

Today is the third chapter. This eagle has a prototype in reality. I still have the photos. I will find it later and post it for you to see.

Please vote, keep voting! Training an eagle to catch a rabbit is much more complicated than training a kite. Let’s wait and see.
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(End of this chapter)