Page 125 - Arabian Studies (II)

Hunting Techniques and Practices in the Arabian Peninsula 117

by Vire.18 Goshawks were much favoured by the Persians and
sparrowhawks are flown with every success at quail in the coastal
regions of Turkey and Syria.

The Trapping of Hawks
As perhaps only one in many hundreds of the hawks trained in
Arabia will have been taken as an eyass*, the main method of
acquiring hawks is trapping. The season for this is from late
September to early November, when hundreds of thousands of birds
pass across the edges of Arabia and in their wake hawks, falcons and
eagles hurrying on the slow and killing the hindmost.
Among those tribes which practise falconry and which live on the
migration routes, this is a time of anxious activity. Not only will
every trapper want birds for local falconers, but he will also be
hoping to catch one of the few young peregrines. The price he will
get for this in Saudi Arabia or on the Gulf will be greater than his
income from other sources many times over. While obviously the vast
prices now paid for hawks is a result of the royalties from oil, there is
no doubt that the presentation of hawks from shaykh to shaykh and
from tribesman to shaykh has long been an accepted token of esteem
and respect.
An efficient and easily managed method of trapping is to attach a
light harness to the back of a pigeon. To this harness are anchored
ten to twelve gut, or nowadays nylon, nooses which stand up from
the pigeon’s back. The pigeon, thus dressed, is then thrown out in
view of the wild hawk, and the trapper departs. If the hawk takes the
pigeon, its long toes will become tangled in the nooses. Though the
hawk will be able to fly for a few yards at a time, weighed down by
the pigeon it will not be long before the trappers catch up and by
throwing an aba over it will end the chase.
Hawks are late risers compared with other birds, and like to spend
some time putting their feathers in order in the early sun before
taking wing. Thus falconers ‘weather*’ their birds before flying them.
The trappers, therefore, search the open flats (sing, qa‘) where the
birds like to sleep, at about six in the morning. The falconer’s need
for patience begins well before the training starts, as he may have to
watch the hawk lazily making false stoops at the pigeon, even landing
beside it, before it decides whether or not to kill it.
Another method is to exploit the hawk’s natural avarice. A small
saker or lanner is taken, seeled* and a bundle of feathers and nooses
tied to its legs. When thrown up, the seeled hawk will probably fly
up, frightened of flying straight for fear of crashing into something,