Seeing the meat in his hand, Little White naturally released the lure and jumped onto the leather sleeve on his arm, devouring the rabbit flesh.
The whole training process, from start to finish, didn’t exceed five minutes, but the viewers in the live streaming room were thoroughly thrilled.
Under conditions of complete freedom, Lin Yang successfully manipulated Little White using the trust and conditioned reflexes established over the previous period to complete a fifty-meter recall line exercise, plus the lure swinging training, with perfect execution.
"Holy shit, this is too awesome."
"Congratulations to the host for successfully completing the training task."
"Tsk tsk tsk, I finally understand what the lure is for, it’s made of rabbit skin sewn with two thunderbird wings and a stone for weight. It’s a simulated prey, used for training Little White to catch."
"Don’t overfeed it, right? Rest for a while and reinforce the training with another session."
"Add one for the guy above, it looks cool but it’s too short. Even if there’s no hunting, daily lure swinging training would also be great, you can’t see this anywhere else."
Lin Yang shook his head with a smile, stroking Little White’s tail feathers with his left hand while explaining, "The previous jump and short-distance call can be reinforced by increasing the number of times, but for this kind of circling flight training, we should not increase the frequency. On the contrary, what we need to do is to extend Little White’s flight endurance as much as possible."
"Extend flight endurance? What do you mean by that?"
Lin Yang didn’t immediately answer but instead asked back, "What’s the goal of our falcon training?"
"Ah, I got it, to have Little White spend more time in flight, extending the time for seeking prey as long as possible."
Lin Yang nodded, "Right, the lure is actually a medium for daily interaction with the falcon, even out of hunting season, there should be a certain amount of training every day, similar to the idea of walking a dog daily.
If the falcon stays tied on its perch without exercising all day, over time it could lead to various issues. Blood circulation becomes sluggish, physical strength declines, weight increases, metabolism decreases, and the load on the talons grow, which could lead to chronic diseases like bumblefoot."
Today Little White performed exceptionally well. After feeding, we’ll continue to adjust on the perch for a couple of days before moving on to the next phase."
Speaking of subsequent phases, there are two different skill tree development directions here.
One is to search for prey with the falcon perched, and upon finding prey, release it from the hand to capture, mainly targeting slower animals like snow rabbits and small rodents. I call this Box Hunting.
Alternatively, the training method involves letting the falcon take to the air, following the person, and swooping down to attack upon spotting prey, mainly targeting birds like thunderbirds. This is called Pan Hunting.
The former has a higher success rate but lacks in spectacles, while the latter is extremely spectacular, but the falcon’s flight endurance is limited. After successfully completing one or two hunts, the decline in strength will affect subsequent hunting."
After Lin Yang had briefly explained the difference between Box Hunting and Pan Hunting, the discussion in the live-stream heated up again.
"Oh man, I got it. Does the host mean that the deadly strike is basically a one-hit kill approach?"
"I understand the meaning of the deadly strike but I’m more curious, does the falcon always deliver this type of attack or is it a matter of chance?"
This kind of knowledge that you wouldn’t normally come across is very interesting to the viewers, sparking various discussions and imaginative theories across the public channel.
Lin Yang watched patiently for a while and then answered, "The deadly strike is actually a habitual hunting behavior when attacking prey. You can’t say it’s 100% successful, but for regular prey, the success rate is quite high.
Moreover, falcons that tend to execute this deadly strike usually have one very clear characteristic. Compared to others of their kind, these falcons are bolder and once their hunting desire and confidence are established, they are more likely to challenge larger prey."
"A falcon weighs at most three or four pounds. How big a prey can it catch? I think rabbits are already the limit."
Lin Yang smiled and shook his head, "Don’t think that just because rabbits are close to Little White’s weight, that they are at its limit.
Let me tell you this, I’ve heard real-life stories from older falconers where a hawk weighing 1.9 pounds when hunting, caught a seven-pound red-haired hare.
A Golden Eagle weighing just over eight pounds caught a grassland wolf weighing over thirty pounds.
The Spear Falcon primarily hunts by diving and kicking. Theoretically, it can capture prey that’s even heavier relative to its weight. In ancient times, there are records of Hai Dongqing killing swans, you know how big swans are? Adult specimens weigh at least over ten pounds!"
The legend of the Golden Eagle hunting wolves has been circulating online for a long time, including a dedicated documentary made about it. Now that Lin Yang brought it up in the live stream, pointing out that Little White has greater potential, everyone’s anticipation grew even more.
"What are we doing next? Going hunting? I’m so eager to see Little White in action on a real hunt."
"Yeah, yeah, let’s go hunting."
Lin Yang shook his head, petting Little White’s bulging crop from eating as he spoke, "Little White has eaten quite a bit, it’s not suitable to continue hunting now.
I’ve also told everyone before that food is a very important means of influencing a falcon’s mood. A fed falcon is hard to work with, and fighting with a full crop can also lead to injuries more easily.
Today our task is to continue bonding with Little White perched. That’s all the food for today. Let’s stretch it a bit with a half meal and feed a little rabbit fur later. Starting tomorrow, we’ll go hunting for real!"