A Bird in the Hand...

A Bird in the Hand... is a side quest in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. After hearing a rumour from the Innkeeper of the Broken Wheel, Henry goes to see Berthold, who runs the hunting lodge of Rattay.

Berthold asks him to find three nightingales that have flown west of the village of Rattay and then catch them. The birds can be tracked by their unique bird call, which is quite loud and distinctive.

Synopsis[]

Three of the Rattay Huntsman's precious nightingales have flown off into the woods somewhere. I'm not exactly an ardent ornithologist - I'm more used to chasing bandits and thieves in the woods. But variety is the spice of life...

Objectives[]

Find the nightingales
- Trap set
  - Bring the nightingales to the Huntsman

Walkthrough[]

Speak to Berthold, who will ask you how good his hearing is, to which a slightly confused Henry responds that it's fine. Berthold explains that his friend, a Birder, asked him to care for three rare nightingales - valuable birds highly prized by the nobility as pets. Unfortunately, they have escaped, and were last seen heading north-east, towards Vranik. Luckily, their wings are clipped, which restricts their ability to fly, meaning that catching them should be easy.

Location of the Nightingale meadow — The nightingale's meadow

Henry points out that the woods around Vranik are huge, and Berthold tells him that he will hear their very distinctive (and not particularly melodious) song - he'll even demonstrate it for you, before giving you three traps and sending you on your way.

Head to the marked zone west of Rattay. The nightingales seem to roost to the north and west of the bandit camp, on a meadow alongside the track - beware of the bandits, who will be likely to attack you on sight. Their song (the nightingales, not the bandits) is very loud, distinct and annoying. When you hear it, drop one trap out of your inventory and wander around for a while, or wait - one hour is usually enough. When the traps are triggered, they will be covered by a piece of cloth, and the bird's song will stop.

Bird Traps — The bird cages, two empty, one full.

Continue wandering around the area listening for the song (there are a few hares here, so it might be a good opportunity to practice your hunting skills, or take out the bandit camp) and repeat the process with other two traps until you have caught all three nightingales in the bird traps. Don't drop all three at once - you won't catch anything, and there's usually no need to cross the road.

Return to Rattay and speak to Berthold, who will gratefully give you 40 ordinary arrows and 150 .

Bugs[]

Sometimes, when returning the nightingales to Berthold, the game will get stuck on the conversation screen, with no way to save or get out. Players are advised to save their game before attempting to finish this quest to avoid losing their progress. This appears to have been corrected in Patch 1.3
- Some players have reported that the empty bird cages will simply disappear after being left on the ground, and not be replaced with the full trap. This is caused by bugs in the 3D modelling. The cages effectively fall 'underground' and are no longer accessible. Although this occurs rarely (once for me in 2.800 hours of playing), it is still advisable to save at least once before embarking on the bird hunt. (it was happening to me every time on the middle spot and i found that if you stand on the log and drop it it works I was on my first playthrough and dropped it about 8 times before trying the log so I recommend saving before dropping any of them)
- Alternatively, you can ride to each spot, drop the cage while seated, and then proceed to wait one hour. If the objective did not complete, check the inventory of the horse (Sidekicks > Inventory), move the traps back to your inventory, and proceed to re-drop them at the correct spots. Wait for another hour, and the objective should complete.

Notes[]

For this quest to become available, just waking up at the Rattay Mill is not enough - you also need to have completed the Main Quest Awakening.
One of the trap spots is right next to a bandit camp, the second one to clear out during Ruin, so it might be opportune to combine these two tasks into a single trip to Vranik forest as it requires to pass two well-frequented ambush spots.