Chapter 4: Riding the cage net, catching the little eagle by the river

“Okay, as long as there’s chicken to eat, I’ll do whatever my big brother tells me to do!” The youngest agreed readily.

Seeing how close the two siblings were, the mother stopped scolding the youngest and said helplessly, “You only know how to spoil her! It’s still a long way from snowing. It’s just autumn now and the leaves haven’t fallen yet. Where can you catch sandpipers for her?”

Yue Feng grinned: “Hehe, the mountain man has his own clever plan!!”

……

Dinner was over quickly and it was completely dark.

Yue Feng took the only electrical flashlight in the house from the chest of drawers and led his sister to the yard.

“Second brother, what do you want me to help you with?” The youngest one asked curiously, tilting his head.

Yue Feng pointed at the eaves of the barn made of straw and said, “There is a thief from the old house living here. I can’t reach in. Please help me reach out and catch him. I am useful!”

“Old sparrow? Old sparrow tastes so good when cooked!” Little Foodie Jingjing heard the sound of Old Sparrow under the eaves, but didn’t listen to what Yue Feng said afterwards. His mind was full of thoughts about cooking Old Sparrow.

Yue Feng shook his head: “No, this old thief is very useful to me! It is directly related to whether I can eat Shabanji in two days. Be good and listen to me!”

“Okay!” In the little girl’s mind, the sand chicken must be more delicious than the one from her hometown and have more meat, so Jingjing suppressed her gluttony and agreed.

After a brief communication, Yue Feng came under the eaves with a flashlight in one hand and Jingjing in the other.

When it was getting dark in the evening, Yue Feng had already observed that there were sparrows nesting under the straw eaves of the warehouse. If he wanted to catch kites early in the morning, he would need these sparrows as bait.

Yue Feng used a flashlight to scan the eaves of the house briefly, then he chose a small grass hole the size of an egg and whispered to his sister, “There should be one or two in here! Don’t be afraid or make a fuss after you find them. There should be more under other eaves, don’t scare them away!!”

“Yeah! I’ve taken it out before, I’m not afraid!” Jingjing responded.

The next second, Yue Feng held the flashlight in his mouth and shone it on the grass hole. Then he lifted his sister up with both hands and walked steadily towards the eaves.

Yue Feng’s guess was correct. Jingjing’s little hand could just fit into the grass hole. She grabbed with her little hand and pulled out two furry little thieves.

“Second brother, we caught two!” Jingjing was very excited, but she still remembered Yue Feng’s instructions just now. She lowered her voice, grabbed the two sparrows with her little hands, and did not dare to let go at all.

“Don’t be nervous, put him in the cage!” Yue Feng put the youngest one back on the ground, and then opened the small rolling cage at his feet.

The two old thieves were put into the cage, and as soon as they entered the cage, they began to struggle wildly.

“Well done, there should be two more by the window! Keep going!”

“Oooo!”

Soon, Yue Feng repeated his old trick and pointed out the location to his sister. Then the youngest sister put her chubby little hand under the eaves again.

There was a small accident this time. Jingjing only managed to catch one. The other one struggled for a few times and broke free from Jingjing’s hand, leaving only a handful of tail feathers.

“One flew away! And it pooped in my hand!” Jingjing stuffed the one in her palm into the cage, muttering somewhat unhappily.

“Okay, three is enough! Go into the house, wash your hands, and go to bed early!” Yue Feng comforted his sister, then checked the rolling cage to make sure it was closed, and then went into the house carrying the cage.

The next morning, at around five o’clock, when it was just dawn, Yue Feng got up from the kang early.

His mother was cooking corn porridge in the outer kitchen. Yue Feng didn’t even have breakfast. He put two steamed buns in his pocket, took the cage, the hanging net and the eagle’s three-piece set, and left home, heading straight for the grove by the river outside the village.

There is a science to choosing a place to set the net to catch young eagles. Small birds of prey like kites (sparrowhawks) and Japanese sparrowhawks have a relatively long migration period in this season. The older generation said that they would wait for the wind, that is, the air flow, and fly southward in a concentrated manner on the air flow.

The migration of eagles in spring is a reproductive migration, from the wintering grounds to the breeding grounds, and the time period is relatively short, at most half a month. The migration time span of birds of prey in autumn is longer. Different birds of prey will have multiple batches of distribution from the beginning of the beginning of summer to the beginning of the light snow. In addition, some eagles in the depression forest choose not to migrate and spend the winter in the breeding grounds.

It is just after the Cold Dew season and there has been no strong north wind in the past few days, so birds of prey will choose to move around in places with plenty of food.

Where can we find enough food in the wild? We can’t live without trees and water sources.

The place where Yue Feng chose to set up the cage net was such a place to catch young eagles.

This is a small forest of mixed elm and poplar trees. The area is very clean, and there are some small bushes in the outer area near the river bank.

Yue Feng strolled around the forest by the river and quickly chose a suitable location to set down the riding cage.

The so-called riding cage net is actually very simple. Just choose a suitable place, then hang the mesh on the trees on both sides and temporarily fix it with a hook. In the area under the net, place a long rolling cage perpendicular to the direction of the net line, and put the bait in the cage.

In this way, if there are birds of prey around, it is easy to find the bird in the rolling cage. When the birds of prey attack the birds in the cage, the birds will flee left and right in the long cage. During the pursuit, the birds of prey may accidentally hit the net and pull the noose open.

The net fell due to the force, trapping the bird of prey in it.

This single-piece riding cage net is very simple and convenient to use to catch small and medium-sized birds of prey. If conditions permit, you can also choose to place several more pieces of net in different places to increase the success rate of capture.

Of course, Yue Feng now only had a net in his hand. After quickly setting it up, he strolled around the river.

In the woods at the entrance of the village in the morning, various birds chirped one after another. The temperature was about 7 or 8 degrees, which was not too cold, but not too comfortable. Yue Feng’s trouser legs were stained with dew while walking, but he didn’t care. He strolled around and observed some subtle traces.

Before the snow fell, the traces on the riverside were not easy to identify, but Yue Feng still relied on his eyesight to discover the traces of the activities of the yellow fox and the sand chicken.

He silently memorized all these traces in his mind. Once the eagle was trained, this place would also be Yue Feng’s hunting ground.

Slowly, the sky brightened and the sun rose.

Before he knew it, several hours had passed and Yue Feng returned to the position of the cage net.

From a distance, I could see the two hooks on the riding cage net fall off.

Yue Feng walked quickly forward and soon found the little eagle caught in the net next to the rolling cage.

A subadult female Japanese sparrowhawk.

Female birds of prey are larger than males, and this sparrowhawk is no exception.

This little eagle weighs about 300 grams. Its pupils are narrowed into needle shapes because it is frightened. Its entire body is covered with feather patterns unique to sub-adults, and anyone who knows it can recognize it at a glance.

Yue Feng’s target today was a female sparrowhawk that was one size larger. This eagle that had just left the nest a few months ago was not his target. Yue Feng gently took the eagle off the net and let it go.

After rearranging the riding cage net and checking the lures under the net again to make sure there were no problems, Yue Feng found a big and thick tree about thirty or forty meters away from the riding cage net and hid there. He sat under the tree and took a nap in the sun.

Less than half an hour later, just when Yue Feng was feeling a little sleepy, he heard a sharp and rapid sound of “chi chi chi”.

He glanced at the cage net and found that another eagle had knocked the net down.

From a distance of several dozen meters, Yue Feng discovered that the eagle that hit the net this time was obviously larger in size. At this moment, the eagle’s wings were entangled in the net and it kept struggling, but the more it struggled, the tighter the eagle became.

Yue Feng walked quickly forward, took a look, then squatted down and started cleaning up.

Caught a kite!
(End of this chapter)