Falcon-mounted camera footage...Great quality

[falcon3d]

New falcon-cam view video..... Enjoy
http://youtu.be/g8_BJCJn9Kk

[falcondoc]

Khaled. Thanks for the clip. The video seems much less bouncy than previous ones I have seen. Houbara hawking really is exciting. Some of the flights go on for 10 minutes. I was lucky enough to get to hawk with the sheikh in Pakistan for 3 seasons.

[falcon3d]

Houbara hawking really is exciting. Some of the flights go on for 10 minutes. I was lucky enough to get to hawk with the sheikh in Pakistan for 3 seasons.

That is a rare privilege. Not much hawking in the UAE I am afraid due to regulations (very ironic), we have to travel far and wide to hunt.

[RedFox]

I'm guessing they're flying a gyr, saker, or a gyr/saker hybrid... Anyone know?

Best,
Roger

[falcondoc]

Roger I cant say for sure about most of the flights but there are at least a few different birds involved. I will say in general that the preferred falcons for houbara flights are female gyrs, gyr/peregrines and gyr/sakers (some of which are 75% gyr).

[RedFox]

Thanks, Tim. I hope to have some similar flights in the future!

[hcmcelroy]

Khaled,

Thanks for the video. Those flights are really exciting. What else do they hawk?

Harry.

[Turumti]

Hi Harry,

Arabian falconry is for the most part houbara centric. Stone curlew and hare are also hunted to a lesser extent, but houbara is the numero uno quarry.

This is the one thing in Arabian falconry that hasnt changed in two thousand years. And it is the one thing that needs to change the most. Falconry in the Gulf, is now solely the preserve of the uber-rich and royalty. The average falconer must either ride piggy back with some sheikh to a foreign land to hunt houbara or then he must be content with his birds chasing bagged pigeons and lures pulled by radio controlled planes.

In the past one decade, thousands of ordinary falconers have been reduced to glorified bird keepers. If this trend continues, it does not bode well for falconry.

[falcondoc]

Salman, I know many arab falconers from the UAE that get together in groups of 2-4 and travel to parts of north Africa, Pakistan and other countries to hawk houbara, kurrowan and hares. These guys are well-off financially, but certainly not uber-rich. I treated birds for many such falconers in the UAE, and trained birds alongside them as well

[dbleyepatches]

I really enjoyed watching this video, thanks for posting it.

[Turumti]

Salman, I know many arab falconers from the UAE that get together in groups of 2-4 and travel to parts of north Africa, Pakistan and other countries to hawk houbara, kurrowan and hares. These guys are well-off financially, but certainly not uber-rich. I treated birds for many such falconers in the UAE, and trained birds alongside them as well

Tim,

Now, at least in Pakistan, no ordinary falconer who is not royalty can come here and hunt without the blessings of the high and mighty of his own country. For if he does, and is discovered, a royal welcome awaits him upon return. The space for the average falconer is shrinking with each passing season.

By the way, since you have spent a lot of time there. Have you ever come across anyone who treated barbaries and shaheens (as falconry birds) as seriously as they treat calidus peregrines and gyr-hybrids?

[falcondoc]

Salman, I am not sure about Pakistan because the different times I hawked there I was indeed there w the falconers/ birds from the ruling family. The breeding project and hospital I worked for was for HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan But I know a lot of falconers that would take trips to Morocco or Mauritania for houbara. Most of the Arab falconers I know were only interested in gyrs, sakers or gyr hybrids ( with either peregrine or saker). A few were interested in female calidus peregrines and I got to see some really large ones. They werent interested at all in barbaries, rednapes or tibba (male peregrines).

[Turumti]

Having hunted with a passage gyr, several gyr-saker hybrids (wild hacked and flight pen hacked, 50/50, 5/8 and 3/4), a couple of gyr-peregrines, a gyr-rednape, countless passage sakers, red shaheens, black shaheens, luggers, redheaded merlins, and about a dozen calidus peregrines. The birds that I prefer the most for the hawking that we have here - houbara, duck, partridge, crow, stone curlew, lapwing, blue jays, collared dove and wild pigeon - are passage sakers (for houbara), black shaheens (for duck), red shaheen (for partridge, duck and crow) and the red headed merlin (for partridge, teal, lapwings, bluejays, doves and pigeons).

Gyrs and their hybrids are big, fast, glamorous and aggressive, but I feel they are too much gun for the game. For example, if one is into houbara hawking, then there is no better spectacle than a passage saker flown at a cunning late season houbara. Both are tested to, and display, the full repertoire of physical abilities and mental capabilities.

Shaheen, both red and black, if trained right, make excellent duck hawks, and the red ones are more than willing to tackle partridge and crow as well.

The ultimate flight, meanwhile, is a cast of red headed merlins ringing up after a lark, or then a merlin chasing a lapwing or a bluejay all over the sky.

I cannot thank God enough for having given me the opportunity to witness flights that only a privileged few are chosen by Him to see.

[falcondoc]

I have seen nice passage female calidus peregrines haul in houbara pretty easily, at least the smaller ones we hawked in Pakistan. The first passage calidus I saw fly houbara caught 3 in an hour or so. So the size is definitely not the only reason for the sheikhs to fly gyrs and hybrids. We always seemed to have several passage Siberian gyrs as well, and they always figured out a way to catch the houbara they were slipped on. Maybe it is overkill, but many of these falcons were later flown on larger houbara and in much colder conditions in Turkmenistan.

[falcondoc]

Oh, I almost forgot---for me the ultimate flight is a gyr/peregrine tiercel 1000 feet above me, and a little upwind, with 20 prairie chickens pinned in corn stubble.

[Turumti]

Tim,

I have flown only one authenti passage gyr to date. It was a gyrkin, and he was fast enough to snatch mallards out of the sky with consummate ease, or at least he made it look easy, when I flew him at them, out of the hood. My favorite haunt for this flight were a few rain fed ponds in the middle of a rather large expanse of sandy desert.

A friend of mine had a couple of female passage gyrs that he got from Russia, in the early and mid 1990's and these too, fly the houbara a lot like my gyrkin flew the mallards. They would chase the houbara, and then get into their "blind spot" before powering up and snatching them out of the air. However, neither gyrs, nor peregrines nor any other bird shows the kind of sport that a passage saker and a late season houbara will show. On more occasion than one, I have seen flights in which both the hunter and the hunted disappeared from view in the cloudless blue sky, and then reappeared spiralling down to the ground.

As for the gyr-peregrine tiercel, not that is a bird that I would like to watch hunt.

[falcondoc]

Did you mean that you would like to watch a tiercel gyr/peregrine hunt? They have proven to be pretty amazing falconry birds. I also really like gyrkins. I flew some passage sakers and had a good time with the sakrets.

[Clanggedin]

Awesome footage. I wonder what camera is being used. It looks quite small.

[Turumti]

Did you mean that you would like to watch a tiercel gyr/peregrine hunt? They have proven to be pretty amazing falconry birds. I also really like gyrkins. I flew some passage sakers and had a good time with the sakrets.

Yes I would like to watch a gyr-pere tiercel hunt. But truth be told, I like pure bred birds more than hybrids, especially for houbara hawking. If I wanted to fill the pot, then there is nothing better than a good passage female gos, and sakret waiting on above. With this strategem, a two man team can catch nearly every houbara that they see.

However the wild saker and the houbara were made for each other, just like the merlin and the lark, and the sparrowhawk and the quail. It is these birds that show the best sport.