Monday, September 15, 2008

Early Morning Surprise: A Beautiful Falcon

Late last week I was driving the kids to school and, in the neighborhood nearby, I passed a man holding a beautiful falcon on his arm. After dropping the kids off I raced back to find the man in a 4x4 with the falcon hooded and perched on the backseat. I inquired about the bird and found the man was a driver employed by his owner who had gone back into the house. He was not going come back out as he had gone to bed and the driver was taking the falcon to the vet for a checkup. I'm guessing that the man was a local Emirati who had his bird with him at a Ramadan tent overnight and he was going to sleep since he might have been up most of the night. This is a common practice for some Emiratis during Ramadan since they are fasting during the day but can eat during the night.

Falconry is, historically, a very popular sport on the Arabian Peninsula. Here is a video of falcon hunting from Sheikh Mohammad's website.

This bird was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Very impressive.

From 2008-9-11 Phone Pics - Falcon


From 2008-9-11 Phone Pics - Falcon


And this picture is from about 5 years ago when I went to Sheikh Mohammad's (different than the current ruler) majlis.

From Sheikh Mohammad & Falcon

2 comments:

M said...

You are right...this is indeed a very beautiful falcon. Usually you don't see white ones.

M

Abdullah Ali said...

That is one seriously beautiful bird. Amazing!

Those pictures were taken with your mobile phone? Really good quality.