Chapter 144: Bait Plate
After several unsuccessful attempts, the big black eagle obediently swallowed the piece of meat into his mouth.

Then came the second time, the third time, and the fourth time.

He was given four thin slices of meat in succession. After eating a few slices of meat, the big black eagle’s fearful expression was obviously relaxed a little.

Upon seeing this, Yue Feng took out the spare eagle hat he had prepared in advance, turned it over with the tassel facing downwards, put the slice of meat on the edge of the eagle hat, used this temporary hat for training as a feeding container like an eagle ladle, and held the hat in his hand and moved close to the eagle.

Blow the whistle again to eat. The big black eagle doesn’t care whether you use chopsticks to pick up the meat or use your hat to hold the meat. When it is hungry, it will eat. It will quickly pick up the meat on the brim of the hat and swallow it.

Seeing this, Yue Feng repeated the process of feeding the meat with the hat for the second and third time, but the only difference was that the meat was placed deeper into the hat.

The fourth time, the meat was placed directly at the bottom of the hat. From the perspective of Big Black Hawk, the meat in the hat could hardly be seen.

At this time, the clever qualities of falcons and other birds of prey began to show. After hearing the whistle for food, the big black eagle lowered its head and looked for meat in its hat.

Yue Feng seized the opportunity and when Big Black Hawk put his head into the hat, he pinched the hat tassel and pushed it back.

The big black eagle had meat in its mouth. When it felt its hat moving, it tilted its neck back out of habit.

Now, Yue Feng naturally put the eagle hat on the big black eagle’s head.

The big black eagle fell into darkness again, not knowing what happened, and immediately stopped moving.

Upon seeing this, Yue Feng pinched the hat tassel and took it off again.

Continue to repeat the previous steps.

After feeding meat and putting on a hat five times in a row, the big black eagle would basically not raise its head and hide when putting on the hat again.

At this point, the second part of the indoor enlightened eating training for the Black Hawk is completed.

Training the Big Black Hawk, the third subject of manual hat recognition and cap buckling has been preliminarily completed.

While doing this continuous training, Yue Feng’s hands were extremely stable. However, after feeding the eagle 60% full and putting the hat back on, Yue Feng was still a little excited and nervous.

The IQ of this gyrfalcon is definitely much higher than that of the peregrine falcon.

In his previous life, Yue Feng would have to spend two or three days repeatedly training on hat-tapping to complete it. Some falcons with slightly more sensitive personalities would not accept the operation of eating meat and then hat-tapping, even though Yue Feng performed the operation perfectly without any mistakes. Some extreme individuals even suffered from hand injuries (fear of hands) due to the forced hat-tapping.

But it took less than ten pieces of meat for this big Black Hawk to go from being panicked and uncomfortable at the beginning to slowly understanding and accepting that there would be meat to eat if the hat was put on.

The difference here can be described as a world of difference. This learning progress is comparable to that of a smart dog.

After completing the feeding training and hat-fastening training, the preliminary preparation work is officially completed.

Then he continued to take off his hat and hold it up day and night, allowing the big black eagle to gradually identify the people in the house, the dogs in the yard, the movements in the alleys, etc.

Seeing this, some people may ask, based on the previous experience of eagle training, is it time to give the big black eagle a chance to show its face? I would like to mention this here in particular.

The training of falcons does not rely heavily on high-intensity outdoor desensitization to people, especially this big black eagle, which is a bit braver than other small falcons.

After getting familiar with the operation of taking off the hat and eating the meat, my interaction with people improved very quickly in the next few days.

To give the simplest example, taking off the hat when blowing the whistle or putting on the hat, after continuous training and reinforcement, even if no meat is given when the whistle is blown, the big black eagle has become accustomed to the act of putting on the hat and has no resistance.

Until the big black eagle, with his hat on and no vision at all, dared to boldly walk towards the sound to look for someone when he heard the whistle. Yue Feng knew that the whistle-enhanced conditioned reflex had basically reached the expected level.

Some people say that the underlying logic of falconry training is like Stockholm syndrome.

Training eagles and the like is somewhat different from this logic, but training falcons does have some similarities.

The originally unruly birds of prey had their wildness suppressed little by little in the hands of humans, their physical reserves reduced, and they slowly began to accept being fed by humans because of hunger.

Through repeated artificial feeding, a new conditioned reflex is established, and this reflex is gradually strengthened to the point where the baby will respond immediately upon hearing the whistle.

After the step of recognizing the whistle is completed, the next important stage is to let the eagle recognize the false bait.

Yue Feng filled cowhide with sand and sewed two pheasant wings on it to make a lure that was shaped like a swallow kite. He then began to formally train the black eagle to recognize the bait.

In fact, the bait recognition training is quite simple. It is based on the same logic as the previous training of teaching the iron-backed red eagle to recognize rabbits. The bait is associated with food. After each whistle is blown, the eagle’s hat is taken off, and the black eagle is allowed to eat the meat prepared in advance on the bait.

In the process of recognizing bait, the black eagle had no reaction to the lure at first, but after eating the lure several times, it gradually realized that the lure was related to eating. After slowly getting used to the lure, when the whistle was blown after taking off the cap, the black eagle would take the initiative to find something to eat at the place where the meat was tied on the back of the lure.

After about half a month, the big black eagle completed the bait recognition training under Yue Feng’s deliberate training.

Ever since he got this gyrfalcon, Yue Feng has focused most of his thoughts and attention on this eagle. During this period, he took his brothers to the mountains for another hunt, and harvested a roe deer and a wild boar. He also did not miss his usual afternoon delivery work.

At this moment, the big black eagle’s net weight after it went out in the morning was 3.3 kilograms. Even if it took off its hat and squatted on people’s hands, its reaction was almost the same as that of the mature young eagle.

At first glance, the jet-black feathers all over the body were fluffed up into a big ball. The wolf and his puppies were playing and fighting under the kang, but the big black eagle didn’t react at all.

In fact, according to the training performance of Black Hawk, Yue Feng felt that he could have taken the next step long ago, but the weather was not good, and there has been a howling northeast wind every day in recent days.

Two days later, the weather finally improved, the wind stopped, and it was a rare sunny day in the Northeast.

Yue Feng had been waiting for this day for a long time. Big Black Hawk had been exercising every day and controlling his diet to control his weight. After Yue Feng’s training for a period of time, his body was still strong. However, the daily exercise and the amount of meat he was fed were not enough to make him completely full, so Big Black Hawk was always in a hungry state.

The weather was good that day, so Yue Feng called Xiao Tao and went to the large rice fields in the north of the village where the production team had harvested rice in autumn.

This piece of land can be regarded as the largest flat plot of land in Fang’an Village. Standing in the center of the plot and looking around, it is flat and unobstructed. The nearest forest at the foot of the mountain is at least several miles away.

Yue Feng handed the leather gloves to Xiao Tao, and then asked him to hold the big black eagle with a hat on.

“Xiao Tao, I’ll ask you to take off your hat later, so you do! Then let go of the two eagles in your hands! Do you understand?” Yue Feng reminded him in advance. Xiao Tao was stunned after hearing this: “Just let go? Don’t you want to hang a string on the eagle? What if I let go of the two eagles and the eagle flies away directly?”

It’s no wonder that Xiao Tao was confused. When he was training the eagle before, he had to train it to a distance of thirty or fifty meters before plucking the string. Only when the eagle was straight enough would he consider putting it on the ground and plucking the string to work to become an eagle.

But the big black eagle was in Yue Feng’s hands, and he had never properly called for it to fly. He just rashly plucked the string. Whether the eagle flew or not, the initiative was entirely in the eagle’s hands. If the big black eagle wanted to fly, Yue Feng and Xiao Tao would have no equal countermeasures!
Yue Feng grinned after hearing this: “You should do whatever I tell you to do. If I’m not sure, how can I take the eagle out to the field? Do as I say, and we can study other things after we finish the work! Just be quiet during this time, don’t shout loudly, and don’t scare the eagle!”

“Okay! Let me make it clear first, if the eagle flies away, don’t blame me!”

“It’s not your fault! Just do as I say. Get ready and don’t make mistakes because of nervousness!”

“profound!”

After getting Xiao Tao’s response, Xiao Tao did not move. Yue Feng walked more than 20 meters away carrying the lure that he usually fed the eagle every day.

When Yue Feng reached his preset position, he called out to Xiao Tao, “Xiao Tao, take off your hat and spread the money!”

Xiao Tao did as he was told, and Yue Feng blew the whistle immediately.

The whistle is the signal for feeding. After more than half a month of conditioned reflex reinforcement, the sound of the whistle has already been implanted in the black eagle’s brain.

After taking off his hat, the big black eagle first adjusted his pupils slightly to adapt to the light outside, and then immediately looked towards the direction where the whistle sound came from.

The big black eagle was seen nodding its head up and down frequently, with its feathers fluffy and in a relatively relaxed state.

Yue Feng continued to whistle and at the same time showed the lure in his hand.

The big black eagle raised its tail and excreted a small piece of poop from its body. Then it flew towards the lure in Yue Feng’s hand without hesitation.

It must be said that a gyrfalcon is a gyrfalcon. Its level flight speed is truly amazing. Even though it is currently in the stage of training to control its weight, its flying speed and posture are still unmatched.

The straight-line distance was less than 30 meters. Almost as soon as they took off, they arrived in front of Yue Feng in an instant.

As the big black eagle flew over, Yue Feng flicked his fingers and loosened a piece of rope around his fingers. The lure instantly fell from his fingertips to a suspended position about thirty to forty centimeters above the ground.

The big black eagle knows that if the whistle is blown, there will be meat on the bait, so the first goal when it flies over is to catch the bait.

Seeing that the lure did not fall to the ground, the big black eagle accelerated and flew over like a small stone skipping on the water.

At this critical moment, Yue Feng grabbed the lure with his right arm and swung it decisively to the right and rear side. The lure with pheasant wings sewn on both sides drew an arc gracefully and barely avoided the first straight dive attack of the big black hawk.

After failing to catch the target in one strike, the big black eagle flew out more than ten meters, turned around three or four meters in the air, and then rushed towards the lure in Yue Feng’s hand.

Yue Feng seized the opportunity and swung the lure again at the critical moment, and the big black eagle missed again.

Back and forth, the big black eagle launched at least seven or eight rounds of attacks on the lure, but Yue Feng dodged them all easily.

Seeing this scene, Xiao Tao, who was standing there not daring to move, was dumbfounded.

What kind of game is this? The big black eagle, which has never been on the ground and has never called far away, took off its hat and scattered for the first time and actually started playing the game of catching fake bait with Brother Feng?
Every time Yue Feng swung the lure to avoid the black hawk’s attack, he was also paying close attention to the black hawk’s overall performance in flying in the air, turning, and rushing to attack.

For example, whether the flying speed has decreased, whether the will to recognize the bait is strong enough, whether there are signs that it is preparing to land after continuous setbacks and failed attacks, etc.

What made Yue Feng very satisfied was that this big black eagle was indeed a blackened version of the Gyrfalcon, known as the most handsome Saker Falcon in the world. It had endurance, perfect flying posture, and a firm will to chase the bait. It flew through the air again and again, with no intention of giving up due to frustration.

Yue Feng played with the big black eagle for about three minutes. When the big black eagle flew over again to catch the lure, Yue Feng deliberately missed a chance and swung the lure a half beat slower, and was then firmly grabbed by the big black eagle.

There was only a muffled sound, and the big black eagle’s sharp claws firmly grasped the lure and slowly dropped it to the ground.

Seeing this, Yue Feng blew the whistle and slowly walked up to the big black eagle.

The first outdoor bait attack training lasted three minutes of high-intensity flight. The big black eagle neither panted heavily nor showed any signs of being very tired. After landing on the ground on the fake bait, it immediately lowered its head and looked for the place where the meat was usually tied.

After finding the meat, he started eating it immediately, tearing it into big mouthfuls and soon finished half of the day’s ration of meat.

The big black eagle is now in a much more miserable state than when it was living in the wild. It only eats the fresh breast meat of the sand chicken. It is no longer picky. After eating half of the ration, it still feels a little unsatisfied.

Yue Feng waved to Xiao Tao, and soon Xiao Tao came up to him and gave Yue Feng the cowhide gloves and eagle hat.

Yue Feng blew the whistle again, and as if by magic, a roll of bird feather meat roll that had been prepared in advance appeared in his hand.

The big black eagle jumped onto Yue Feng’s hand without hesitation, then took the meat roll and swallowed it with his head tilted back.

In this way, Yue Feng finished eating the remaining half of the day’s ration.

After eating the last piece of meat, Yue Feng blew the whistle and easily put the hat on the big black eagle’s head.

The big black eagle, which had been tumbling at low altitude and exerting its energy not long ago, immediately relaxed its feathers after the hat was put on its head. Yue Feng gently touched its claws and tail, and the big black eagle behaved very obediently. As for the appearance of putting on the hat just after arriving home and breathing out desperately to scare people when touched, it had long been worn out after being kept in the air day and night for half a month.

“Brother, this is too amazing! If I remember correctly, this big black eagle has never called for a long time, right? How could it be so stable when it was untied for the first time? We didn’t restrict it at all just now, it could have escaped immediately if it wanted to fly, why didn’t the big black eagle run away!”

Xiao Tao witnessed the entire process of Yue Feng’s training of the black eagle using lures outdoors. He was quite surprised by the black eagle’s performance. To be serious, the scene just now even directly impacted his personal understanding of eagle training.

The process of falcon training is actually more detailed than what is written in the article. Many details are explained, but the general direction is fine. You can just take a look at it to broaden your horizons, but don’t do it exactly as it is written.

Birds of prey are at least second-level protected animals in the country. Private domestication is not allowed, and people must have sufficient respect for national laws.

Three chapters of 12000+ words have been completed. Please continue to vote and ask for all kinds of support!

Thank you for the repeated rewards from the boss of Frozen Valley. Your preference makes me a little nervous. Otherwise, should we take it easy?
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(End of this chapter)