Chapter 32: Be Bold

Yue Feng pointed to the distinctly different pattern on the belly of the sparrowhawk and said, "Look at this pattern. Everywhere else it's vertical, but here it has turned horizontal! This is where the juvenile down unexpectedly fell out, and adult feathers grew back in its place!

Look at these tail feathers as well; two of them are darker in color! This is also a case of losing down and replacing it with adult plumage!

Back in the day, a hawk that had just left the nest wouldn't have molted naturally within just a few months! This was 100% caused by external interference, which forced the hawk to lose its feathers and regrow adult ones!

Think about it—when would a hawk unexpectedly lose its feathers?" Yue Feng asked the three men.

Xiaowen, who had been silent until now, guessed uncertainly, "Could it be injured while hunting?"

Yue Feng nodded. "Exactly! It sustained minor injuries while fighting prey!

If it were molting in other parts of the body, it might be uncertain, but since the injury is on the belly and tail feathers, we can deduce that the prey this hawk caught was definitely a big one! During the struggle, the prey accidentally damaged the hawk's belly and tail feathers!"

As if to verify Yue Feng's guess, he soon discovered a new detail at the position of the third claw on the hawk's left leg.

There was an old injury on the outer claw of the hawk's left foot, and the talon was missing.

The hawk's talon is a weapon formed through bone modification; the tip is curved, the edges are slightly thin, and there is a groove on the inner side, resembling a blood groove on a dagger. When magnified, it looks like an alien dagger growing out of the finger.

A hawk's foot is divided into four digits: three in the front and one in the back. Starting from the shortest digit on one side, they are called the Great Ring, Middle Finger, Outer Claw, and Rear Lever.

The Great Ring is like a human thumb—the shortest, but the thickest and strongest, and it holds the longest talon. A large portion of the damage a hawk inflicts on prey comes from the talon on the Great Ring.

The Middle Finger is the longest with moderate strength, expanding the hawk's gripping range.

The Outer Claw is like a human pinky; it has the least strength and the shortest talon tip.

The Rear Lever is just as important as the Great Ring, being the second strongest digit.

Now, the talon on the outer claw of this sparrowhawk's left foot was gone, which indirectly verified Yue Feng's previous judgment: this hawk had handled some "big business" before.

"Handling big business doesn't necessarily mean it's exceptionally skilled, does it?" Xiaotao continued to ask.

Yue Feng nodded. "That's true. Having guts doesn't mean having strength.

A truly strong hawk wouldn't have these injuries.

As the saying goes, 'A skilled warrior bears no conspicuous scars!'

Take this Great Blue Sparrowhawk, for example—it doesn't have a single scratch from head to toe! Even when it took down a pheasant and a weasel last time, it wasn't injured!

However, while other skills can be trained, courage is innate and cannot be sought. That is its true value!

The finest hunting hawks are those that are both brave and clever enough to subdue prey while ensuring they themselves remain uninjured!

We're keeping this sparrowhawk too! Leave the net here, and take the rolling cage along with the decoys. I'll come back early tomorrow morning! If luck is on our side, we should have the whole set of hawks by tomorrow morning!"

"Alright!"

Having made his plans, Yue Feng took today's catch and headed down the mountain with the group to go home.

One purple hawk, one sparrowhawk—the two hawks were handed over to his father, Yue Lei. The old man happened to be at home, working on two other hawks one in each hand; by staggering their schedules, they could actually increase efficiency.

Since his son was working on serious business, the father naturally gave his hundred percent unconditional support.

That night, Yue Lei sat by the oil lamp to "flatten" (tame/condition) the two hawks. He never slackened, even pausing only to unfasten the hawk hoods to let the birds "strike a strip" (a term for when a hawk defecates, leaving a white streak on the ground). He worked until past eleven at night before finally heading to the heated brick bed to rest.

The next morning, as soon as the rooster crowed, both Yue Feng and Yue Lei were up. Yue Lei leaned on his crutch, carrying the hawks to the courtyard to "watch the sky," while Yue Feng grabbed the rolling cage from the granary and went to the small woods where they set the nets to place decoys in the cage nets.

It must be said that the morning is indeed the golden hour for raptor foraging. When Yue Feng went to check the nets at the foot of the mountain by the river after eight o'clock, all three net sections had yielded catches.

One old, red-eyed Eurasian Sparrowhawk (an adult male) and two mediocre, earthy-yellow sparrowhawks.

The old sparrowhawk was small, only capable of catching prey the size of sparrows, magpies, or quail, which was not the species Yue Feng was targeting. Furthermore, with its red eyes, it was an old hawk of at least five or six years. Yue Feng decisively released it.

The remaining two sparrowhawks were of average quality—no great strengths, but no obvious flaws either.

With this, the five main hunting hawks of the Yue Family Falconry Team were all in place. Including Uncle Li, the five members each had one hawk.

Yue Feng packed up the cage nets used for catching hawks and returned home with the two newly caught sparrowhawks.

Once the hawks are home, there is a specific way to arrange them. If it were just one hawk, Yue Feng would only need to loosely tie it to the back of a chair at night to get by.

But with five Eurasian sparrowhawks and one Autumn Flower Pine hawk in the house, things couldn't be handled sloppily.

Raptors will fight each other, and hawks will occasionally struggle after being tethered. They cannot simply be tied to a single horizontal bar haphazardly. Therefore, Yue Feng specifically dug holes in a sunny spot outside the main house in the courtyard and buried three pine stakes—two vertical and one horizontal.

The two vertical stakes were secured in the ground, and a horizontal log with its original pine bark attached was placed across them. Beneath the wood, he hung a curtain made of burlap scraps to completely fill the space below.

If a tethered hawk struggles, it might end up hanging below the perch, unable to climb back up. This burlap curtain ensures the hawk won't spin on the perch and accidentally "hang" itself; the claws can also gain leverage against the burlap to help the hawk climb back onto the perch.

Over the next few days, the Yue family became very busy.

His father, Yue Lei, worked alongside Li Wen to condition the new hawks, while Yue Feng took the primary Great Blue Sparrowhawk up the mountain every day. The three other apprentices followed Yue Feng to assist with the hunting poles, averaging about ten pieces of prey per day. After setting aside some prey to feed the hawks, they headed into town every two days to continue supplying Niu Fusheng.

Five days later, the condition of the four newly caught sparrowhawks had been adjusted to the proper state by the Yue father and son.

Once the hawks showed signs of being "in the mood," Yue Feng directly tied a sand quail caught on the mountain the previous day to an open space under a tree outside the courtyard to create hunting opportunities for the new hawks.

Once the new hawks had watched the tethered prey roll around a few times, the step of "becoming an adult hawk" was considered complete. They only needed to be flown on strings for a few days of actual combat. Once the hawks were accustomed to the field, the training would be considered finished.

The entire process of training a new hawk lasted eight days, and the final new hawk was successfully trained by Yue Feng.

The four new hawks were distributed to Xiaotao, Xiaowen, and the others, who had "graduated" from practical field training with Yue Feng. Thus, the five members of the falconry team officially began their journey of hunting with hawks to earn money.