Chapter 163: Catching a group of people

When Yue Feng arrived at Chen Pao’s house, the old man was already fully armed.

Catching a hawk is different from catching other hawks. Although this little guy is not big in size, his temperament is somewhat different from that of ordinary hawks.

The migratory habits of eagles have been mentioned before. In spring, they migrate for reproduction. The time is very short and the migration is very concentrated. They return from the wintering grounds to the breeding grounds. The time spent is very short and once it’s over, they are gone.

Autumn is a seasonal migration season, from breeding grounds to wintering grounds. The migration cycle is relatively much longer, and some birds also stay in the low-lying forests.

Few of these birds breed in the Northeast. Most of them breed in the remote wilderness areas of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. They will migrate with the flocks in late autumn. Among small birds of prey, they are one of the species that migrate the latest.

It is a typical winter migratory bird in the Northeast and North China, which means it flies away when the weather gets warmer and spends the winter in this area.

Most of the young eagles are afraid of the cold, but this one is one of the few birds of prey that is not so sensitive to temperature and is relatively not afraid of the cold.

During their migration, they will choose terrain environments with relatively abundant food as their wintering areas. Therefore, if you find the activities of a duozi in the wild in winter, this area is probably within its territory.

In addition to having its own activity area, this eagle is also one of the few eaglets whose hunting has a very good biological rhythm.

In an environment where food is relatively abundant, the hunting time of the duozi is fixed every day. They are small in size and good at hunting for food, so as long as food resources are relatively abundant, they rarely go hungry.

After catching food, it will eat on the spot or carry the prey to a nearby tree in the woods. After eating and drinking, it will stroll around the territory, which can also be understood as patrolling the territory to prevent other passing birds of prey from occupying the territory.

Because of this habit, many people who are new to catching eagles and do not understand the habits of the traps, clearly find that there are traps in a certain field, but the success rate of catching eagles with various fancy nets is extremely low. It is even exaggerated to the point that the little eagle flies over the head of the decoy several times, but the eagle remains indifferent.

In fact, apart from a few cases where there are problems with the arrangement of the nets, the main reason is most likely the wrong location or time of lowering the net.

Think about it, in this season, when you set nets to catch eaglets, you basically go out and come back the same day. When you set the nets, the eaglets have already eaten their fill, and of course they will be indifferent when they see your nets and bait.

In addition, the eagle itself is a very intelligent bird of prey. If the nets for catching eagles are too dense or the ropes are too thick, they may be discovered by the eagle. After the probabilities are superimposed on each other, a person who knows how to catch it may be able to catch it easily, but an unaware person may know that there is a eagle but may not be able to catch it after several attempts.

As an experienced fisherman, Yue Feng knew the habits of these fishermen too well. He went to meet Chen Pao before dawn and did not even have time to eat the breakfast prepared by Aunt Chen, so as to set up the nets before the early fishermen came to hunt for food.

The place where the net was set this time was still near the grove where the escaped eagle was caught last time.

However, the net used today is not a self-trapping net, but another single-sided fork net that is usually used to catch young eagles.

In fact, the principle of using a fork net to catch eagles is basically the same as using a cage net to catch kites in autumn. The only difference is that the place where the net is set is not in the woods, but outside the woods.

If there are no trees to serve as a base for hanging the net, you must bring two bamboo poles or other thin and straight wooden sticks to hang the net.

Yue Feng brought two bamboo poles less than two meters long. He fixed them on the ground with his feet and then hung the single net on it.

The net is also very particular. It is a three-finger wide net for catching kites, but the line is a thinner single strand of black.

After the mesh was hung and arranged, Yue Feng placed the wire cage containing the sparrows on the ground near the shady side of the mesh. When everything was ready, he simply cleaned up the traces under his feet, then took Chen Pao to a haystack to shelter from the wind and hid there waiting for dawn.

Catching birds on a platform is also very entertaining.

Most of the birds caught by hawks, such as the pine sparrowhawk, are small birds that come to the ground to eat. Their main attack is unexpected and high-speed attack, and their targets are mainly the old, weak, sick and disabled birds in the bird group.

The strong individuals are quite confident in their flying ability. When catching birds, they like to chase small flocks of birds, and most of them chase the strongest and fastest flying individuals in the flock.

If there are no flocks of birds in its habitat, Duozi likes to blow the birds up from the ground when hunting, and then grab them at super-high speed. Before the bird even hits the ground, it lowers its head and bites it on the back of the neck. Therefore, there are almost no birds caught by Duozi alive, as they are all killed with one shot.

In his previous life, Yue Feng used nets to catch larks in the lowlands in winter and saw with his own eyes a wild female larks (Malianthes chinensis) chasing a skylark flying in the sky. The chasing posture, flying high up and down, could last for more than ten minutes before the dust settled. In most cases, the larks won, and the success rate of predation was very high.

After Yue Feng and Chen Pao cast their nets, they came to a haystack to take shelter from the wind. This piece of land belonged to the collective brigade of Chen Pao’s village, so Chen Pao could protect it.

The father and son lit a small fire, chatted by the fire, and waited for the sun to come out.

“Xiao Feng, how long do we have to wait to check the net? What if the little blue eagle doesn’t come here to eat today?”

Chen Pao’s expression and mood were almost exactly the same as when he called Yue Feng to help catch the jailbroken Da Ying a few days ago, a little nervous but full of anticipation.

Yue Feng grinned, added a few straws to the fire, leaned against the haystack and said, “It shouldn’t be a big problem. There’s no wind today, and the temperature has been relatively stable in recent days. You saw traces of it yesterday, so it must still be active in this area!”

“That’s good, that’s good! I’m almost sixty years old, and I’m still doing this kind of work of getting up in the middle of the night to set nets and catch birds. If I tell others about it, those old guys will definitely laugh at me!!” Chen Pao laughed at himself after hearing this.

“What’s the big deal? When you were young, didn’t you dig a cellar in the mountains? That’s much crazier than waiting for the dawn by a fire in the haystack at the entrance of our village now!”

“Speaking of underground cellars, I really had one on the mountain 20 years ago! We all came from a very poor time, and we have suffered all kinds of hardships.

Sometimes when we went hunting in the mountains we had to walk quite far and could not come back on the same day, so we had to spend the night in the mountains. Later, after discussing it with a few old friends, we spent a week digging a cellar in the mountains. Whoever of us could not come back on the same day would spend the night in the cellar!

The conditions were poor at that time. We had many children in our family, and some of them were at the age of growing up and had big appetites. The food distributed by the production team was not enough to fill us up even if we saved it. We had to go to the mountains to hire livestock to improve the food for our family!

I remember it very clearly. In 63, the Muling River flooded, the land was inundated, the harvest was poor, and the villagers did not have enough food to eat.

As the year draws to a close, the family is having trouble making ends meet.

I decided to go up the mountain and try my luck. It took two and a half hours to walk from my home to the place I had chosen.

Before I left, your aunt gathered all the edible food in the house and helped me cook a big bowl of black paste made of cornmeal, rice bran and dried sweet potatoes.

I drank two sips of this bowl of porridge and fed the rest to the old spotted dog at home at that time!
There is no other way. We have to rely on dogs to hunt and track in the mountains. The dogs don’t get much money at home and are as thin as mantises. If they don’t have food in their stomachs when working in the mountains, they can’t even walk.

The homemade rifles used at that time only had enough gunpowder for three shots. If you failed to kill the prey, you wouldn’t even have the money to buy gunpowder and saltpeter later!
After drinking two mouthfuls of porridge in the morning, I felt hungry halfway before I even reached the top of the mountain. I came across some wild grapes that had dried but not rotted by the ditch, so I plucked them up and stuffed them into my mouth. When a person is hungry for too long, he is no longer a human being. He wants to stuff anything he sees into his mouth to fill his stomach!
But I had a good idea that time when we went up the mountain. Xiaohua took me to chase the trail for most of the day and finally caught a big elk with a half-grown cub.

I gritted my teeth and stuffed two loads of gunpowder into the rifle, filling it with all the lead bullets.

It’s a matter of life or death!

With one shot, a hole bigger than a fist was made on the side of the elk’s chest.

The big elk was knocked down by me.

This shot also left me with tinnitus in my ears.

This big elk was shot dead, but I was not very happy. Instead, I lay on the deer and cried loudly!

I thought to myself, deer, don’t blame me. I have a wife and children at home, and I have to stay alive!
Thanks to this deer, our family did not go hungry all spring, and your aunt’s edema was cured. Our family of five survived these famine years together.

From then on, every year when I went up the mountain and saw a deer, I never hunted it again. That deer saved the lives of my whole family. Later, when our lives got better and we had enough food to eat, I only hunted black-haired animals that were harmful to people (wild boars and bears have black hair, and there are also yellow-haired animals. Deer, roe deer, and musk deer are all considered yellow-haired, which is a loose general term for hunters).

Being a hunter can be quite strange sometimes. It depends on whether God will let you make a fortune!
Autumn is better. Even if you can’t hunt, you can still pick some mushrooms, eat some soft dates, and bring some mountain products home.

The most difficult time is winter, when it is freezing cold and covered with ice and snow. All the animals in the mountains hide tightly. Sometimes it is so strange that you can walk in the mountains for a whole day without seeing a single living creature!
Sometimes when the dry food we brought with us to the mountains was all gone, and we ran all day without catching anything, we had to go home hungry. When we were really too hungry to bear it, we would just grab a handful of snow and stuff it into our mouths! “

Mentioning the old days of hunting in the mountains when he was young, Chen Pao opened up the conversation and Yue Feng was immersed in it unconsciously. Although the conditions were still not so good in the 80s, people were basically not starving to death. The food was just worse and less oily, but they could still fill their stomachs.

……

Lost in memories of the past, Chen Pao chattered on and on about many things from his youth. Yue Feng leaned against the haystack and listened quietly.

Before I knew it, it was daybreak and the sun came out.

The father and son stayed in the wilderness for more than two hours. When Yue Feng remembered to pee, he found that his cotton shoes were frozen through and his feet were numb.

Yue Feng pulled Chen Pao up and stretched them out. Seeing that the time was almost up, the two of them walked towards the place where Xia Cancha was.

From a distance, I could see the mesh falling down due to the triggering mechanism, and the sparrows in the cage were frightened and flapped their wings non-stop.

Yue Feng was delighted: “I caught him!”

After saying this, Yue Feng took big strides and ran over.

When I got closer, I saw, as expected, an orchid with a tile-blue back and wings, and rust-red breast flowers, wrapped tightly in the net wire and lying on the ground, unable to move.

When the orchid flower saw people, it was so scared that its mouth opened, and the pupils of its bright big eyes dilated slightly because of fear.

The eagle is not big, only one size larger than a swallow, and is estimated to weigh less than three taels at most. But judging from its size and appearance, it is really iconic.

Yue Feng put on gloves and controlled the eagle first, then patiently untied the net wrapped around the eagle. After everything was straightened out, Yue Feng took out a small goldfish-eye screw-on eagle cap from his pocket and put it on the little blue eagle.

I made the eagle cap based on the size in my memory. The overall proportions are not a big problem, except that the opening is a little low, which means that after putting the cap on the eagle, the mouth cannot be fully exposed.

This little problem is not a big deal. When he returns to the house, Yue Feng can solve the problem by using a knife to trim the crack on the hat upwards.

After putting on the hat, the eagle was obviously much more stable after it could no longer see anything. Yue Feng asked Uncle Chen to help and put on both hats at once.

After the two-open toad-five-foot move was completed, Yue Feng released his hand and let the little eagle with the hat on stand on the back of Yue Feng’s hand.

Now, all the details of the little orchid’s body, its proportions and quality, were clearly displayed in front of the two of them.

It is not very big, and with the hat and other miscellaneous items on its hands, it weighs only about three or two taels. Its wings are very thin, and when they are folded up, they are almost invisible from the front.

The head shape is very good, with a round head and a delicate mouth, which means it must be smart. Unlike some individuals, they have a big toad head, which is not only unsightly, but also has a much worse temper.

The nose wax film is green with a slight yellow tint, which is a characteristic of one-year-old eagles. This means that this eagle was hatched last spring and is less than a year and a half old.

This is the most ideal age except for the peach blossom that has not molted that year (the subadult male is called peach blossom before it molts, and after molting it turns blue and becomes orchid).

Look at the eagle’s body proportions. It has a broad chest, is thick on top and narrow on the bottom. It stands upright on a person’s hand, and its overall body shape is like a small mallet.

The eagle is not big, but its claws are quite big among its kind. They are dry and thin, with sharp nails, giving people a feeling of having muscles and bones. The small eagle has a crotch width of more than two fingers, and it looks stable when standing on the hand.

Here are three chapters with 10000 words. I found that the backend data started to drop, and the votes also started to drop. It’s less than words, and there’s still a lot of space to write. Please give me some chance. If you have any questions, please ask me!
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(End of this chapter)