catching birds by hand

In the second clump he saw a bird, moved close to it, paused when the head feathers came up and it made a sound like a cricket — a sign of alarm just before it flew — then moved closer when the feathers went down and the bird relaxed. He did this four times, never looking at the bird directly, moving toward it at an angle so that it seemed he was moving off to the side — he had perfected this method after many attempts and it worked so well that he had actually caught one with his bare hands — until he was standing less than three feet from the bird, which was frozen in a hiding attitude in the brush.