Spring, 58, 517
Rayt woke up before the break of dawn this morning and started his daily exercise for regaining his grip strength. Now he could push the tong-like apparatus an inch for ten repetitions three times before his hand ached too much. His left hand had been injured by an archery accident of his own doing. Rayt still couldn't fully close his hand after days upon days of healing...but it was getting better. Today the goal was to find a falcon or an osprey nest and steal some of their eggs, if not all of them. Rayt always justified the act of taking animals or eggs or cubs or what have you by the simple fact he could take care of them better and give them better homes than they could have in the wild. The birds he cared for often lived longer and he bonded with them in a special way most of the time. Rayt brought the backpack with him and threw some arrows and his short bow into it before heading out into the wilds. Rayt knew that falcons didn't build nests, they would often take unused eagle or pigeon nests and lay their eggs in there. Climbing a tree was out of the question, he wouldn't even know how to get up a tree in the first place. He would have to wander through the wilderness and hope he could stumble upon a nest a falcon was using, maybe he would get lucky.
Rayt looked around the wilderness, it was a lovely spring morning and the sun was just rising. There were many bird calls around. He recognized a few eagles, some sparrows. He thought about raising eagle chics... hmm...eagles are magnificent birds...but they may be too much for me to handle. It's a thought though if I don't find any falcons. Rayt continued through the countless trees and got on his knees searching through the underbrush. Rayt was surprised to see several eggs smashed in the underbrush. He wasn't sure which eggs these were but they were large eggs, maybe about the size of a human hand if they were whole. Rayt thought nothing of this, broken eggs were found all the time, predators needed to eat, accidents happened. What was disturbing was the fact that it seemed an entire nest of bird eggs seemed to be there. The eggs were brown and spotted and Rayt seemed to remember from his days in Wind Reach and under his master's tutelage from caring for the majestic birds that falcon eggs were of the same color and design. Rayt was still unsure if these were indeed falcon eggs, but now he was less unsure. He hoped this was not a foreboding sign as to the health or availability of falcon eggs...or even something more menacing to the falcons threatening their way of life. Rayt grunted and made his eyebrows arched in a determined expression. If the falcons were under distress for any reason he would have to find a nest quickly or risk not finding them at all. He just hoped it was an isolated incident and not some sort of epidemic.