Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl-Chapter 37: Look How Hungry the Child Is

To be honest, they hadn't even realized that the Long-tailed Wood Owl had built a nest near the rescue station.

Apart from a few common species of birds, most choose to nest away from human environments.

Long-tailed Wood Owls usually live in coniferous forests, or mixed coniferous and broadleaf forests.

This area around the rescue station, being a secondary forest zone with mixed foliage, was not the first choice for Long-tailed Wood Owls to raise their young.

Yin Li moved faster, sprinting about ten meters before suddenly stopping and pulling Chen Ying, who was following him.

Without speaking, their understanding allowed Chen Ying to instantly realize that something unexpected must have happened.

With the sparse light in the forest, Chen Ying saw on the tree branch ahead not only the Long-tailed Wood Owl making a threatening "hoo-hoo" sound, but also two figures that looked somewhat familiar.

"Is that Brother Monkey and Little Monkey's mother?"

Chen Ying rubbed his eyes, disbelievingly watching the two Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys confronting the wood owl from behind another tree.

Strange things happen every year, but today there were especially many!

Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys are generally mild-mannered and have nothing to do with wood owls. Facing off in the middle of the night, wasn't Brother Monkey afraid of losing the home-field advantage?

The closeness of the humans shifted the focus of the standoff between the Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys and the wood owl.

Initially on high alert, Brother Monkey took a few deep breaths and his bristled fur gradually calmed down.

"Squeak squeak, you two-legged beast, tell this unreasonable bird that my son was kindly helping it pick up its chick, but it accuses him of stealing."

Brother Monkey didn't say anything, and Mother Monkey chattered away incessantly, even coming down to approach Chen Ying, her little face full of grievance.

The previously traumatized Little Monkey clung tightly to his mother's fur, his large eyes clear and bewildered as he looked at Chen Ying.

Chen Ying crouched down and noticed that Mother Monkey was holding a chick in her hand; it had only a few feathers and looked quite ugly with its bare skin.

Long-tailed Wood Owls are late bloomers, needing to stay in the nest for thirty to forty days after hatching before they can fly.

It was unclear how the chick had fallen, only to be found by Little Monkey.

But evidently, the wood owl mother thought the monkeys had raided her home, furiously attacking Little Monkey before being driven away by Brother Monkey.

Chen Ying knew he couldn't let this continue, as the wood owl mother might decide to abandon her young brood.

He carefully took the chick from Mother Monkey, quickly checking it; fortunately, it wasn't injured.

However, the mountain forest was cold, and if the chick didn't return to the nest quickly, it might die from hypothermia.

After soothing Mother Monkey for a while and having Yin Li help distract Brother Monkey and Mother Monkey, Chen Ying decided to take the risk of climbing the tree to return the chick to its nest.

Originally, Yin Li suggested he should go since Chen Ying wasn't as good at climbing trees.

But unfortunately for Yin Li, not being the chosen protagonist meant that the chick might pick up his scent, leading to rejection by the bird mother.

Chen Ying, on the other hand, had a system!

Though Brother Tong's abilities were a bit weak, he possessed all the functions loveable for wildlife welfare; eliminating human scents from animal cubs was a matter of a moment for him.

His only concern was that the Wood Owl Mother might attack him as he climbed.

Chen Ying took a deep breath, secured the hood of his protective jacket, and cautiously approached the large tree where the Wood Owl Mother was perched.

"Don't be nervous, I'm here to help you."

Chen Ying spread his hands, showing the plump chick to the Wood Owl Mother.

He wasn't actually sure if the Wood Owl Mother could see clearly, he just wanted to show his harmlessness and friendliness.

Seeing that the Forest Owl Mother didn't attack him or fly away immediately, Chen Ying placed the chick into the pocket over his chest and began to climb the tree.

His somewhat clumsy climbing posture was unbearable for Yin Li to watch.

At that time, colleagues from the rescue station who had come along were also biting their cheeks, trying to hold back their laughter.

They didn't dare to get as close to the wood owl as Chen Ying and Yin Li, staying about ten meters away, hiding behind trees and peeking.

In any case, Chen Ying eventually managed to climb to the tree hole where the wood owl's nest was located by hopping like a rabbit.

After resting for a little while, when his breathing had evened out and his hands stopped shaking, he took out the chick and placed it back in the nest.

Normally, Long-tailed Wood Owls lay two to six eggs.

This young Forest Owl Mother had hatched five fluffy and lively chicks, which explained why one might have accidentally rolled out of the nest.

When Chen Ying went to place the chick back, the remaining four energetically touched his fingers, clamoring for food.

For the Long-tailed Wood Owl, this season was slightly late for hatching, but the weather was unusually warm this year, and the abundance of food around the nesting season was still decent.

Chen Ying quickly assessed the tree hole; the conditions weren't great, and once the chicks grew a bit, they might barely fit.

The descent was much quicker, and during this time, the Forest Owl Mother made no moves to attack.

Feeling that this wood owl seemed quite docile, Chen Ying's mind began to race.

The incubator had been running for a week now, the task falling to the "least busy" Duanmu Lin, who was checking on the eggs daily.

Just yesterday, he mentioned that the blood vessels inside the eggs had become thicker.

Without an ornithologist on their side, Duanmu had taken pictures of the egg's shape and uploaded them to a professional forum hoping for help, but so far, no one could definitively identify the bird species from the eggs.

What else could they do but keep incubating them? They would consider how to care for and teach the hatchling once it broke out of the shell.

If it was also an owl species, perhaps they could ask this Long-tailed Owl Mother to help raise it?

Chen Ying was just thinking aloud; whether it would work would depend on the type of bird that hatched.

Thinking so much took only a couple of minutes.

Once the Long-tailed Owl Mother was sure the threat was gone, she returned to the nest to comfort her children.

With all the disturbance, she dared not leave the nest to hunt, and the hungry chicks were screaming so loudly that Chen Ying and Yin Li became anxious below the tree.

"What should we do, should we get them some meat strips?"

"This afternoon I caught a wild rabbit; I gave the tender meat from the belly to the little leopard as a snack, I still have a rabbit leg left, shall I go cut some for the female wood owl to see if she is willing to tear it up for the chicks?"

No sooner said than done.

Chen Ying quickly stripped a box of meat strips, put on his helmet and protective suit, and climbed the tree again with difficulty.

This time, the Forest Owl Mother in the tree hole stared at him up close.

Chen Ying carefully placed the meat at the edge of the tree hole and couldn't resist stretching out his finger to gently touch the Forest Owl Mother's head.

The Forest Owl Mother tilted her head to size up Chen Ying and, without ceremony, began pecking at the meat strips and swallowing them.

The smell of meat intensified the chicks' cries.

After eating a few bites, the Forest Owl Mother began tearing the meat strips to feed her children.

Seeing that the Forest Owl Mother didn't reject his feeding, Chen Ying breathed a sigh of relief, quietly took out his phone, switched it to night mode, turned off the flash, and, using the moonlight, took a photo of the Forest Owl Mother feeding her chicks.

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It was too dark to see the contours of the chicks clearly, but the several wide-open bird beaks were still vividly visible in the darkness.

Look how hungry the kids were!