Fishing Livestream
Chapter 820: 803: The First Scene of the Blue Swan Hunt in the Eastern Sea (Part 1)

Chapter 820: Chapter 803: The First Scene of the Blue Swan Hunt in the Eastern Sea (Part 1)

This kick was swift and clean, and under the drifting feathers in the sky, the thunderbird used for training had already lost its vitality before landing.

As one of the main foods in the peregrine falcon’s diet, Little White was even more familiar with the thunderbird than with snow hares. Grabbing the thunderbird in mid-air, it flapped its wings and descended towards Yue Feng.

Seeing that Little White had no intention of flying off with its prey, Yue Feng felt a weight lift off his shoulders; another hurdle passed!

Considering Little White’s weight, it is capable of carrying a female thunderbird of this size for a medium-distance flight. If Little White’s affinity training had the slightest flaw, it might have fearedfully flown off with the thunderbird to its desired location for feeding in such a situation.

However, Yue Feng was fortunate; Little White’s affinity was strong enough, and it landed calmly a few meters away, starting to de-feather and prepare to eat.

“Holy crap! What a kick!”

“Yeah, it’s almost as stunning as the first time I saw Little White catch a thunderbird!”

“The thunderbird’s flight pattern just now was a bit strange. Why was it circling upwards? What’s the principle behind that? Did Brother Feng do something?”

“I’m more curious about the underlying logic of how Brother Feng trains; there should be a reason, right?”

Yue Feng nodded: “First, let me answer why the thunderbird circles upwards after being released! Before coming here, I stitched its eyelids shut! It’s not a morbid fascination; it’s genuinely necessary for training! Without visual alignment, most birds fly upwards! If you don’t sew up the eyes, the thunderbird might fly astray, making it easy to lose the falcon!

As for the underlying training logic, it’s about using the opportunity of releasing prey to encourage Little White to keep ascending, which I call positive reinforcement!

What this positive reinforcement means is that when Little White ascends, I deliberately release prey, and after several times, it associates climbing altitude with the appearance of prey! When Little White takes to the sky, it habitually ascends, waiting to find prey, achieving our training goal!

This is already a relatively advanced eagle training method, requiring good timing and also a certain degree of intelligence from the eagle. From my assessment, an intelligent eagle should learn this after two to three similar experiences!”

“Uh, something doesn’t seem right. Just now in the circling process, it was clearly released only after flying for a while! Since you mentioned positive guidance, shouldn’t the release occur as soon as the ascent begins? It feels like there’s more to it!”

Good heavens, there’s a logical genius among the viewers, noticing even the tiny details Yue Feng didn’t mention.

Yue Feng: “Our training goal is to let the falcon ascend as much as possible! Not ascent for its own sake! Basic flight altitude has to be sufficient to talk about further ascending training! If you give positive reinforcement at just thirty to fifty meters, that height is fairly adequate for the falcon, making it harder to significantly enhance it later!

The timing I picked just now isn’t as simple as it looks; it was after stabilizing altitude and waiting for the wind to rise, allowing Little White to continue climbing using the airflow, that I released the thunderbird!”

“Wow, there’s even this much attention to detail! If Brother Feng hadn’t explained, I wouldn’t have noticed!”

“It seems a bit luck-dependent; what if the wind doesn’t rise?”

“A hundred meters or so, isn’t that enough? It’s just a tiny black dot left!”

Yue Feng shook his head with a smile: “If the wind doesn’t rise, wait for the next opportunity! The training period is long, and often delays are due to unsuitable timing! Eagle training and fishing have their insights, needing favorable timing, location, and human factors! Improper conditions and haphazard training only unnecessarily increase the risk of mistakes.”

“Awesome!”

“Learned something new, Brother Feng is amazing!”

“Will there be more training today?”

“Yeah, is the training continuing?”

Yue Feng glanced at the thunderbird which Little White had almost completely de-feathered at his feet: “For circling flight training, not today. Without a live thunderbird for assistance, we’ll switch to using the lure for regular box hunting!”

In the next second, Yue Feng pulled out the lure, whistled, and swapped out Little White’s prey using an old method. After feeding it a portion, he tucked the thunderbird into his backpack and hid it away.

In the following half-day, Yue Feng led Little White, sweeping through the surrounding hunting grounds, and upon returning to the camp, the backpack was stuffed with five more rabbits.

On the second and third days, Yue Feng’s luck improved; the north wind blew almost every day on time, and the deployed hang foot traps yielded more stable catches, with at least two live thunderbirds caught daily.

Yue Feng’s expectations aligned closely with reality. By consistently releasing thunderbirds during windy climbs, Little White quickly established positive guidance. After training with four thunderbirds that had their eyes sown, Little White’s circling flight altitude reached around 180 meters, and each release from Yue Feng’s hand saw it swiftly enter a circling ascent, performing even better than some well-trained hawks.

With the toughest issue of circling flight altitude resolved through training, Yue Feng’s subsequent plans shifted in the following days.

He began gradually moving out of the familiar hunting grounds, edging closer to a new, unfamiliar area near the lakeside.

During this season, numerous small swans stop by the unfrozen lakeside for a break, and Yue Feng’s ultimate target was these creatures.

After a few days of exploring, Yue Feng gained a preliminary understanding of the surrounding environment, and the plan for circling hunting small swans officially commenced.

After recent refinements and nourishment, Little White’s weight returned to its peak state before the netting, and its hover time per circling flight extended from the initial ten minutes to over twenty minutes. The longest lasted nearly half an hour, with the large loop it flew around Yue Feng barely visible as a black dot.

At this point, Little White’s controllability remained extremely stable. With a lure and a whistle, without excessive repetition, it could be easily called back from a kilometer away in mid-air, with no hesitation.

On the 36th day of the wilderness challenge, Yue Feng still rose early before dawn. For today’s formal preparations, he fed Little White only half the amount of food yesterday. Once it heard movement, Little White began cawing while wearing its hood.

Holding the falcon on his arm with its feathers still developing, Yue Feng habitually inspected the condition of its stomach contents. After ensuring everything was alright, he shouldered his backpack, started the livestream, and headed towards the new hunting ground area by the lake!

Today’s livestream title was also changed to “Fishing and Hunting in the Wilderness, Sea Eagle Hunting Swans Live!”

Before ending the stream yesterday, previews were already given to the viewers, so as soon as the broadcast started, the number of viewers in the livestream exceeded 10,000! More people continued to join frantically.

Holding a defensive wooden staff in his left hand and the falcon in his right, with a military knife tied to his waist, Yue Feng looked slightly grimy but was in very good spirits.