Solo Jumping Bugs and Birds

[Dust]

Fall 43, 513 AV afternoon The day was bright and clear, the sky vivid blue dotted with puffy white-gray cloudstuff, the trees of the woods showing brown and yellow around the tips of their leaves. Chill touched the edges of the river breeze, but Syna's strong light baked its sharpness away, still potent with the memory of summer. It was very much a day for being outside, tasting the wind and basking in the colors before gray winter leached most of them away. On the strength of that ideology, plus her own ever-abundant energy, Dust had taken occupancy (so to speak) of an otherwise empty pasture field. The horses had grazed this one down to short stubble, and been moved on to another, leaving it wide open for a different task. Armed with a small cloth bag, its drawstring looped around one wrist, Dust closed the pasture gate behind her, then started off through the field. She kept her steps slow, blue eyes scanning back and forth, left to right and back the other way, searching not for specific things but for any movement. That, and any horse droppings she needed to not step in... but mostly movement. After all, no field bereft of stock was truly empty... just empty of the larger forms of life. Step, scan. Step, scan. Turn, step... scan. Grass rustled, a gratifying sound; the Kelvic turned towards it and pounced, but her hands landed on empty earth; whatever had made the rustling escaped right quick. How disappointing. Maybe a lizard? Well, she wasn't here for lizards anyway. Step, scan. Turn, step, scan. There was a ladybug, black-spotted orange, clinging to a tuft of grass. And there were a whole line's worth of ants, scrambling back and forth and running into one another constantly. Silly things. More searching uncovered a beetle -- the kind that tasted bad, even to a raven -- two of some other sort she didn't recognize, and a big hairy spider that scuttled away into the shadow of more grass. Also not what she was looking for. Dust made it almost to the far side of the field before she saw motion above the level of the ground: a blurry arc which started two feet away and ended at more like six. At the sight, a bright and gleeful smile spread across her features -- that was definitely a grasshopper! And those were exactly what she needed to find.

[Dust]

Dust stood stock-still for a moment, squinting as she studied the field. No angular little grasshopper forms came immediately clear to her sight, but where there was one, there must be more. Crouching slightly, she crept forward towards where she thought that one hand landed, steps so short her feet almost landed on top of one another. She tried not to step on things that rolled or crunched or rustled; thankfully, the grass was all still pretty green, the grazers having prevented it from going to seed and dying. That didn't stop the grasshoppers from possibly seeing the Kelvic, of course, but nothing much could do that. She slowed down as she came closer, trying hard to spot her quarry first. Grass, grass, grass, rock, grass, there!... no, a stick... more grass... Funny just how hard the bugs were to see, especially with human eyes. Dust was certain her raven eyes would have spotted it already, but she didn't want to shift now. That felt like cheating. There! Long, sharply-bent legs twitched, and her attention fixated on the spot. Grasshopper! Dust ducked her head down lower, as if it might matter to the grasshopper just how tall the woman loomed. She oriented on it and moved forward, slowly-slowly, hands cupped in preparation for capture... and pounced! A black streak arced away from her with a clicking buzz, but something also tickled at the skin of her palms, trapped underneath her hands. Closing her fingers, Dust snared her quarry, straightening to examine the grasshopper in her grip. It squirmed kind of uncomfortably, and bubbled some sort of icky brownish goo from its mouth, but nothing dimmed her glee. Success! Then off with its head by simple expedient of her thumbnail, the better to prevent any future escape. The body went into her bag, and Dust promptly set off questing for that other one which had gotten away. That one proved more cautious than the first; no sooner did she spot it than it buzzed away, showing flickers of bright orange wings all the while. Keeping one eye on where it had landed, she circled around, spooking up another two but ignoring them both as they scattered in different directions. Crouch low, sneak forward, watch, watch... stop, getting very close now... find the thing that isn't grass. There! It wasn't facing her new position, maybe she could get the drop on it. Dust held herself as low as she could, creeping closer, hand held out at the ready... swiped it down at the grasshopper... and missed! The bug slipped out at the last moment, jumping bzzt-bzzt off in another direction, leaving the Kelvic behind empty-handed. That just made Dust determined to catch the thing.

[Dust]

Eyes narrowed in frustrated concentration, she fixated on where the bug had gone and tried again. Circle around -- but it was watching this time, making jerky twitches to follow her movement. No advantage to be had there. Creep in, knowing it was looking all the while. It would come down to who acted first, and who was fastest... if Dust pounced too early, she'd fall short; if she waited too long, it would just jump away. Tension ratcheted with each step, the question of whether this one would spook her quarry into flight. Not yet... step by creeping, creeping step... not yet... hand out, ready to strike... go! Dust's hand flashed forward and down, audibly clapping against the earth underneath -- and no bzzt-bzzt clicking rang out across the air. She had it! Elation faded after the first flush, though, as doubt crept in: nothing was tickling her skin the way the first one had. But when she carefully, carefully closed her fingers, Dust did indeed trap the insect between them. Straightening, she held it up against the sky for a really good view, frankly gloating at her triumph. Once that had been indulged in full, the Kelvic dispatched the grasshopper -- and ate it herself. The kestrel could have the rest; this one was her victory, to be celebrated in full. Though it didn't taste nearly as good to a human tongue as to the raven's, prickly and a little bitter. ...Maybe she wouldn't eat any more today, even if they proved irksome. There were certainly more grasshoppers to catch. Dust chased them around the field until she'd snared a few dozen, far less than needed to fill the bag but more than enough for her immediate purpose. Once that was finished, she was very warm, despite the crisp autumn air; it was good to move on to something less active. Making her way back towards Sanctuary proper, she found Chalce waiting in the mews' flight yard with hooded kestrel in hand, held up where she could examine the bird closely. A portable perch sat beside her, its bar low to the ground. The Inarta glanced to the Kelvic as she walked past, a slight smile given in answer to Dust's cheery grin. Dust took a moment to get her own pair of gloves from the mews, sliding the somewhat stiff coverings over her hands. She still didn't like gloves much, being so very used to having her hands free, but they were decidedly useful. Especially when dealing with sharp talons and beaks, even those of a very small raptor.

[Dust]

Stepping out into the flight yard, Dust took a position across from the perch. Chalce let the little bird down to the perch so that it faced Dust, removed its hood, and stepped back to observe but not get involved. The kestrel looked around at its surroundings -- yard, buildings, people, all familiar things. Nothing of concern, and nothing of terribly great interest either. As it took stock of its environment, the Kelvic considered it in return -- almost tiny, sleek, with the mottled brown plumage denoting it a female. And she'd better get started, before Chalce said something, or the kestrel got bored -- which would be worse. Dust tucked a dead grasshopper into her hand, then held up a fist; the kestrel immediately perked up, then ducked into a crouch. "Up," she dictated, and the little raptor vaulted to her hand in a flurry of feathers and disrupted air. Little talons prickled at the glove, dimpling her skin but breaking through nothing; they reminded her of the feel of grasshopper claws, though there was a world of difference between those and raptor talons. A whistle met its arrival on her hand, that and a grasshopper carcass between Dust's protected fingers, rewards for doing as desired. She lowered her hand, and the kestrel glided back down to its perch; an old hand at this game, it kept one eye on Dust, waiting for the repeat which would surely come. She gave it what it expected -- a raised hand, a command, another grasshopper. Down again, and up again, watching the kestrel's short flights, the way it held itself on the perch, the alacrity with which it responded to her motion and commands. After a few jumps, Dust stopped giving it grasshoppers every time. Sometimes she would, and sometimes she wouldn't, and if the kestrel looked a bit disappointed when it came up to receive nothing but a whistle -- well, sometimes that was how things worked out. Sometimes the kestrel didn’t look at her right away, but was distracted by something else -- a stray leaf, a sound from another building, bird noises from the woods. Then, Dust would lower her hand, wait a little bit, and try again. At some point, Chalce abstracted herself from the session to do other work; Dust noticed only after the fact, her attention focused entirely on the raptor which was her charge of the moment.

[Dust]

oocFour computers, three houses, and two states later... finally pulling together Dust's offline drafts and getting them posted. The jump-ups soon got boring. The kestrel would've kept right on doing them as long as Dust kept offering food, of course -- or until it got too tired and full to bother -- but she got weary of them, once the novelty of having even a little raptor respond to her commands wore off. Fortunately, the Kelvic had been given two other games to use, and didn't have to resort to making up entertainments of her own. The second game involved what Chalce referred to as "distant control" jump-ups -- similar to the exercise she was already doing, but with the bird moving between two other positions rather than to and from her own fist. Lowering the kestrel to its perch, Dust stepped back a bit, the bird watching her progress. Then she pointed at the fence, saying "up" as a cue to the bird. The falcon looked at her, then at the fence, and back again, seeming to contemplate the change in instructions. Finally, it fluttered up to the top of one of the fenceposts, an action which Dust commemorated with a cheery whistle. Good bird! The kestrel continued to look at her, and responded with alacrity when she pointed it back down to its original perch. Dust repeated the commands a couple of times, then summoned it up to her fist, where the falcon received another grasshopper as a reward. Really, the kestrel was rather cute. And so small! Even its feathers were small, and its beak, and she barely even felt the talon points through the thickness of her gloves. Dust could work with these falcons all day. ...Well, not really, but almost! Speaking of certain birds. Dust lowered the kestrel back to its perch before it could become annoyed with her wandering thoughts, directing it "up" to the fence, down again, back to her hand for a treat. And wondered, while continuing the directed-jump cycle (not without staggering how many times it had to go back and forth before getting its reward), just what the kestrel thought about all this. It wasn't like most falcons were given to working together, but here people had taught them to rely on human-provided cues, and they largely did so without complaint. Even to the point of letting the falconer take their kills, providing a lesser but ready-to-eat bit of meat in exchange. The birds all seemed content with their way of life, but even with her own Kelvic nature to lean on for interpretation, Dust had no idea what went on inside their heads. Or whether they thought about their situation at all. The birds didn't go in for that kind of question and answer thing (unlike people), so she couldn't even ask. Oh well.

[Dust]

After several rounds of directed jump-ups, Dust decided it was time to escalate the game a little further. She called the falcon back to her fist, giving it a well-deserved grasshopper treat. Then she gave the kestrel an "up" cue, but without directing it to a specific place. The bird spent a tick or three looking for her direction, then figured out it wasn't going to be forthcoming. The falcon hopped up to the fence on her own initiative, which Dust rewarded with a whistle. Another command set the bird to looking for another higher perch, and it flapped up to a low branch reaching in over the wall, to another whistle from Dust. As Chalce had described it, this was useful to direct the bird into a better position during hunts. Because apparently they didn't cue that well on their falconers' attention, or anticipate which way the prey would be flushed. Or something. That last part was just Dust's own conclusion, an extrapolation of what she had been told and what she witnessed. Something that had to do with the birds being told what to do so much, that they came to rely on it. Something like that, anyway. She still hadn't worked out what it all meant... ...and wasn't going to now, in between giving directives to the kestrel and summoning it back for treats. Dust noticed she was running out of grasshoppers; in fact, she was down to just one, sadly. Which meant it was time for little kestrels -- and Kelvic ravens -- to wind down and call the morning excitement done. Dust summoned the kestrel to her fist one final time, watching it gulp down the last of its treats with a cheerful smile. She turned to find Chalce waiting expectantly just a few paces away; the Kelvic probably would have jumped in admittedly exaggerated surprise, but the weight of the bird on her hand reminded her not to. Startling raptors was not a good thing. "I guess you're done, huh? So'm I!" she informed the Inarta, not that Chalce needed to be told. In this case, done-ness was a rather self-evident state. Together, the two of them went on to secure the kestrel and return it to the mews -- and then on to more work of the more mundane kind, because many birds meant many chores to do.

[Faradae]

Dust
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

E X P E R I E N C E

• Tracking +2
• Hunting +2
• Falconry +4

L O R E S

• Tracking: Detecting movement
• Hunting: Watching the prey's reactions
• Hunting: Catching grasshoppers
• Falconry: Kestrels: Looks and diet
• Grasshoppers do not taste well to humans
• Falconry: Using gloves to avoid cuts and bites
• Falconry: Commanding a bird to come
• Falconry: Rewarding a falcon during training
• Falconry: Distance control

N O T E S

Thank you for this nice read (what a cute hunt!). I was conflicted whether to award birdkeeping or falconry for the kestrel diet choices. In the end I went with falconry, but since the prey you're hunting for the bird is rather tiny and would be eaten by any other smaller bird, let me know if you'd prefer the point in birdkeeping and I'll change that.

Please remember to edit your grade request to reflect that this grade has been seen to!
If there are questions about the grades, please contact me via PM.