Chapter 7: Ascending the Nature, Hanging the String, Becoming the Eagle

Chapter 7: Rising Temperament, Stringing, Becoming a Falcon!

It was seen suddenly stretching its previously retracted neck, then shaking its head repeatedly.

After a few efforts, a black pellet about the size of a thumb pad was quickly spat out from the young falcon's beak.

This was the "fur pellet" (mao zhou) that Yue Feng had mentioned.

Birds of prey in the wild survive by catching various prey. Parts of the food they consume—such as fur, bones, and even foreign objects—cannot be digested in their stomachs. By the next morning, they spit out these miscellaneous items.

When feeding it the water-soaked sparrow yesterday, the falcon had eaten too greedily and swallowed the wet feathers along with it. Now, after a full night of digestion, it had naturally spat them out.

The act of a bird of prey spitting out indigestible pellets is a normal behavior.

In the long-term practice of training and raising falcons, clever falconers discovered that these pellets carry out digestive juices and other substances from the falcon's stomach and intestines.

A falcon that has "cleared its pellet" has a stronger desire to feed during actual hunting and shows more ferocity when pursuing prey. Therefore, in the process of training, there is a practice of intentionally inducing the falcon to produce a pellet.

There are several types of pellets; common ones include fur pellets and hemp pellets. When training large falcons, different types like rock sugar pellets or radish pellets are also used.

The pellet Yue Feng induced by feeding the falcon a wet sparrow was a fur pellet. This is his favorite type to use for training because the feathers are fine and soft, making them unlikely to injure the falcon, and after spitting it out, it carries away more digestive fluids from the cavity, yielding better overall results.

After spitting out the pellet, the state of the large blue sparrowhawk changed visibly. Outside the courtyard wall, where the eye couldn't see, early-rising sparrows were chirping. The young falcon standing on Yue Feng’s hand had eyes darting around, and the small downy feathers under its beak and around its eyes had all fluffed up.

This was a representative state of "rising temperament." Seeing this, Yue Feng immediately moved the falcon onto his hand and tied the prepared tire-cord string to the end of the jesses.

Stringing successful!

Yue Feng called his mother, who was cooking in the main room, to take a live sparrow out of the cage. He pulled out the primary feathers on one of the sparrow's wings, thoroughly soaked its fur in clean water, broke one of its legs, and tossed it into the middle of the courtyard.

The sparrow kept in the cage had already been through several days of torment and was not in good condition. Now, with a broken leg and missing wing feathers, it looked listless in the courtyard, only able to hop in small ranges and occasionally falling over.

With the preparations complete, Yue Feng walked out of the house with the falcon on his hand. The sparrowhawk, now with its temperament risen, recognized the injured sparrow twenty meters away at a glance.

Seeing this, Yue Feng leveled his right hand and tossed the sparrowhawk directly toward the sparrow.

The falcon took off like an arrow from a bowstring. With a stretch and a tuck of its wings, it accelerated a few times and firmly pinned the sparrow under its feet.

An expert shows their skill with a single move. Even though this was just a routine simulated hunting operation, Yue Feng had already caught a glimpse of the falcon's potential from its flight posture.

This large blue sparrowhawk caught the sparrow with great speed, and what was even rarer was that it maintained a "big flight" after leaving his hand.

So-called "big flight" means flying with wings fully extended. This is fast but consumes more stamina.

If a falcon like this is released, its speed is high, its pursuit is fierce, and its success rate in hunting is very high.

Besides "big flight," there is another flight method where the wings are only half-extended, called "small flight." This is more energy-efficient, but the speed of linear acceleration is much slower.

Yue Feng, standing under the eaves, did not rush over immediately. Instead, he gripped the other end of the tire-cord, reeling it in while cautiously walking toward the sparrowhawk as it ate.

The sparrowhawk had eaten soaked white meat yesterday, but today it was switched to fresh blood-meat, and its desire to eat had clearly increased. In almost no time, it tore off the large flight feathers from the sparrow's wings, and then it could tear a chunk of meat off the sparrow in a single bite.

A live sparrow with wet feathers was torn to pieces and swallowed in just a few bites. Even the hard sparrow beak, the meatless dry legs, and the sparrow claws were all crudely swallowed by the large blue sparrowhawk.

For a seven-and-a-half-tael large blue sparrowhawk, one sparrow was nowhere near enough to fill its stomach. If measured by normal appetite, it would need at least three to four a day.

However, falconry doesn't allow for human rights or animal protection laws. If one wants to train a falcon to work in the field as quickly as possible, the entire process Yue Feng was using was basically the most efficient choice.

By the time the falcon finished eating, Yue Feng had already straightened and coiled the dozen meters of string. This string tied to the jesses acted as an insurance line during the training process, ensuring that if the falcon were accidentally startled, it wouldn't be lost, rendering all previous efforts futile.

Yue Feng was very satisfied with the hunting operation in the courtyard; the performance of this large blue sparrowhawk was even better than he had expected.

Bold, full of stamina, and willing to expend energy for "big flight" acceleration during the hunt—these traits were all concentrated in one falcon. Given time, once the falcon was fully trained, it would surely be a fierce warrior.

Yue Feng lifted the falcon again, strolling around the courtyard. When tired, he would sit on a folding stool for a while, until it was completely dark, before going inside to eat with his parents.

After dinner, the food in the falcon's crop had completely moved down and disappeared. Yue Feng wore his glove, carrying the falcon for a while, then letting it go and lifting it again, switching every hour on average.

According to the training plan, Yue Feng intended to take the falcon for actual field hunting tomorrow, so tonight was destined to be a sleepless one.

Yue Feng lit an oil lamp and fiddled with the falcon, persisting until 2:30 in the morning. Only when the falcon stood on his hand, tucked its head into its wing feathers, and fell completely asleep did he tie the falcon up and take a nap on the heated brick bed.

A little after 4:30, as soon as the rooster crowed, Yue Feng scrambled out of his quilt, put on his clothes and shoes, and lifted the falcon from the back of the chair.

Less than half an hour later, the large blue sparrowhawk performed its customary head-shaking to spit out a fur pellet. Yue Feng crumbled the pellet, glanced at it to confirm there were no issues, immediately took the falcon, and strolled out of the house.

The sky was just beginning to brighten, and the entire village was still quiet. The autumn farm work was already finished, so the villagers couldn't get up at this hour. As he walked out of the village, there were only a few sporadic dog barks.

Yue Feng walked out of the village with the falcon, keeping an eye on the small birds in the fields along the road.

Many newly caught falcons don't recognize large prey, but the large blue sparrowhawk in Yue Feng's hand was no coward. Not long after leaving the village, he noticed the falcon on his hand straining toward a bush twenty meters away.

A falcon's eyesight is definitely far superior to that of an ordinary person. Yue Feng noticed that once the sparrowhawk locked onto its prey, it immediately stood still and observed carefully.

After focusing for a few seconds, Yue Feng soon spotted the prey in the bushes.