Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 13 Saving Brother Eagle's Life

A shadow passed over his head, like a crashed plane, and fell straight into the bushes ahead.

As it slid past, Yu Qiutang burst into laughter.

Oh shit.

I thought it was some kind of bird of prey, but it turned out to be a pheasant. How did it fly into the mountains? It doesn't stay in the fields. It's not that there are no pheasants in the mountains, but there are relatively few of them, and the species are different from those in the plains.

But just as he was about to stand up, suddenly a faster figure almost passed over his head, chasing the pheasant, and then plunged into the bushes together. He saw the two pheasants, one yellow and one colorful, struggling for a few times, and both were stuck in the bushes and could not move.

Is this awkward?
Yu Qiutang held the axe and groped his way over slowly.

In the thorn bushes dozens of meters away, in addition to a beautiful male pheasant, there was actually a large brown bird. Its wings were just spread out and got stuck. At a glance, the wingspan was at least one meter.

A true bird of prey.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be an adult female golden eagle.

Although she was trapped, she was still energetic and impressive. When she saw Yu Qiutang coming, she stared at him with her round eyes and issued a warning.

But because of its special vocalization pattern, its cry sounds like a chicken and cannot scare people.

It is said that although this kind of call does not affect people, it is a very scary sound to the ears of many birds and small animals.

The golden eagle is a common bird of prey in the Qinling Mountains.

It has many subspecies and is widely distributed. Its weight is generally around four or five kilograms, and the heaviest can reach seven or eight kilograms, but it is relatively rare.

The wingspan of a golden eagle is very wide, with an adult one reaching two meters, and its body length can grow to over one meter.

Although it weighs only a few kilograms, it is very fast and has great endurance. It can catch almost all birds as well as roe deer, deer, goats, foxes, marmots and other animals.

If it is a specially trained golden eagle, it can also hunt wolves in spacious areas.

They will chase the wolf until it has exhausted its stamina, then use their sharp claws to pierce the wolf's head, killing it directly.

There are legends about golden eagles catching their prey and throwing it to death in the air. In fact, this is very rare. The golden eagle's load-bearing capacity is not strong, and it is difficult for it to lift large prey into the air. They usually kill by catching it, or use their wings to knock their prey to death when it is running at high speed.

The golden eagle's beak is very sharp and has a strong biting ability, so it can easily tear its prey into pieces. If they cannot finish eating the prey, they will separate the prey and take it back to the nest.

Yu Qiutang discovered that the color under the golden eagle's belly was very light, and knew that she must be a mother golden eagle.

The breeding time of golden eagles in different regions is uncertain and basically varies according to the temperature.

For example, golden eagles in the Northeast often choose to lay eggs in April and May because the weather is too cold. As for the golden eagles in the Northwest, it depends on the specific area. The northern Xinjiang is similar to the Northeast, while the Qinling Mountains are a little earlier, usually starting to lay eggs in March and April.

After the golden eagle lays eggs, the male and female take turns incubating them. The incubation period basically takes forty to fifty days, and then the young golden eagle takes more than three months to grow up.

According to the time calculation, it is now July, and the golden eagle mother's children should not have left the nest yet. She probably came out to help her children find food.

As a forest ranger in his previous life, Yu Qiutang was naturally very familiar with golden eagles, and he also liked this beautiful bird of prey.

"What are you doing in this wild jujube forest? An aerial unit like you should hunt in a more spacious place."

Yu Qiutang joked as he slowly approached and carefully cut away the surrounding thorns. The golden eagle began to make more intense warning sounds, flapping only one wing that could move quickly, causing dust, leaves, and weeds to fly everywhere. Yu Qiutang could understand.

A trapped beast fights back. The more ferocious the beast is, the stronger its resistance will be once its freedom is restricted.

He was still about one meter away from the golden eagle. He stopped and lowered his body as much as possible to keep his eyes level with the golden eagle. "I'll help you cut the thorns here, and you can go back. Don't attack me. I know your meat is not delicious, and I'm not on your menu."

Talking to animals was also a habit he developed in his previous life.

Sometimes when walking in the mountains and feeling lonely, one would talk to the animals. In the process of communicating with them, one would gradually learn more information about the animals and be able to distinguish the emotions represented by the different calls of different animals.

At this moment, he heard the golden eagle's cry finally change from rapid to slow, and the tone was no longer harsh, but sounded like the mumbling of a dreamer. He knew that the golden eagle temporarily understood his behavior and its emotions had stabilized.

Only then did he carefully cut down the last jujube tree that trapped it.

The branch caught the golden eagle's wing, but he only had an axe and could only chop it down along with the tree.

As the tree trunk as thick as the child's arm fell, the golden eagle was frightened again. It flapped its wings quickly and found that it had hope of gaining freedom. It immediately struggled faster and its feathers flew all over the sky. It managed to break free and spread its wings to fly into the air.

It flew to a height of several dozen meters, circled around Yu Qiutang on the ground for a few times, and quickly disappeared into the depths of the forest.

Yu Qiutang withdrew his gaze and saw the pheasant entangled in thorns with a grim smile on his face.

This pheasant is definitely wild among wild ones.

Many animals and birds are very different in the mountains and below the mountains. Take pheasants for example. The pheasants in the mountains are longer and thinner than those in the mountains. This helps them maintain a certain flying ability.

The pheasants living at the foot of the mountain have short wings, fat bodies, and greatly reduced flying ability.

So many people have different understandings of the speed of pheasants, and the reason is that they see different types of pheasants.

Pheasants in the mountains take off very quickly, but pheasants in the mountains, especially those in areas with plenty of food, take off more slowly and are easily caught by well-trained dogs or wild cats.

The same interesting differences also occur in weasels, cuckoos, etc. People who have lived in the mountains for a long time know that they are almost different creatures.

After picking up the pheasant from the thorns, Yu Qiutang discovered that the pheasant was actually half dead and it was estimated that it could barely survive until returning home.

"Don't worry, I'll give you a quick death."

After tying up the chicken legs and hanging them on his shoulders, Yu Qiutang was about to leave when he suddenly saw a lot of carved hairs and feathers on the ground. Thinking that they might be used to make arrows for crossbows, he picked up some of the undamaged ones.

After the golden eagle's efforts, the sour jujube tree could no longer be found today, so he simply turned around and went down the mountain.

The last ray of sunset fell completely behind the mountains. The wind in the mountains became stronger, blowing Yu Qiutang's clothes bulging as if a naughty child was hiding inside. He hummed a cheerful Shaanxi folk song and took light steps down the mountain along the way he came.

"There are mountains one after another, and water one after another~"

His melodious singing echoed in the mountains.

"... Let's eat meat tonight, fat pheasant legs~"

(End of this chapter)