Dubai: Bird in the sand
Monday, April 02, 2007
I should confess that I went to Dubai prepared to dislike the place. I had imagined a soulless desert; not in the sense of austere, sandy dunes, but in terms of endless gruesome shopping malls flogging designer rubbish. And Ski Dubai, the snow dome that churns out artificial snow in Middle Eastern heat: how mad is that? It’s true that those who want to shop till they drop have no shortage of opportunities here; there’s a mall on every corner and, when I visited, the 45-day Dubai Shopping Festival was in full swing. The hotels, built from scratch with space no object, are on the scale of cathedrals. You can get thoroughly lost wandering between different wings and levels.
But it was in the bar of one of these behemoths that I was introduced to Hamad Ghanem Shaheen Al Ghanem, sipping mint tea with his hookah at his elbow. I was interested in learning about traditional falconry, and Hamad’s magnificent saker falcon, Rabab (Cloud) was perched on the table next to him. Disdainfully indifferent to the hum and bustle around her, she occasionally smoothed her speckled breast feathers with a ferociously taloned foot. “Don’t touch her,” warned Hamad. “She is a hunter, not just for show.” I wasn’t tempted; even though Rabab’s tasselled leather hood kept her calm, her beak was sharply hooked. A striking falcon can take the head clean off its victim with those vicious talons, and it’s easy to see how when you meet one of these elegant hunters close up.
Hamad breeds both falcons and salukis, the traditional Arabian sight-hounds, swift and agile. He stages demonstrations and competitions, and also organises hunts with falcons and dogs, using horses or camels, depending on the terrain. Horses do better in wadis (dry river beds) and camels can cope with heavy sand. The birds travel to the hunting areas with their keepers. ” We travel by plane and the falcons stay with us,” he says. “We keep a seat for them, which is sold at half price.” Hunting to survive, says Hamad, is an Arabian tradition. “Falcons hunt for desert chickens, bustards, rabbits, small gazelle; we don’t feed them for two days before a hunt.”
Hunting, he says, is not simply a pursuit for the rich. “Anyone can take part and experience the tradition of the old days when hunting was for survival. We hunt for our sons and daughters, the younger generation, to remind them of their ancestors. You have to keep traditions alive.”
Hamad releases captive-bred falcons into the wild in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. “The government supports this in the Gulf. We take them in a plane full of perches and we remove all their ID except their microchips. They need to be independent, so they have no human contact before they are released and in 10 or 20 days they revert to being wild.”
There are falcon souks at the Nad Al Sheba Falcon Centre: only registered falconers can make a purchase but anyone can wander around, admiring the sakers, peregrines and gyrfalcons. The hunting season runs from September to the early summer, until the birds start their seasonal moult. The brand-new centre has high cream walls, ochre tiled floors and a lofty, tented ceiling; here falconers can buy leather hoods and jesses (tethers), bells, travelling cases and perches. The more traditional perches are made of stone or wood, but Astroturf is also available; it’s comfortable on the birds’ feet and easy to clean.
According to one of the falconers at Nad Al Sheba, the stunning Burj Al Arab hotel uses hawks to chase out the birds that regularly find themselves blundering around its air-conditioning system. Dubai is, in fact, renowned for its varied birdlife, and although the city can feel like one huge building site, there is still room for wildlife.
The Ras Al Khor Wildlife Reserve, at the seaward end of Dubai Creek, initially looks unpromising, with its backdrop of skyscrapers, hoardings, pylons and flyovers. In fact, this is an internationally recognised wetland habitat. The birds here remain in the mangrove swamps they have always inhabited, unmoved by the ceaseless hum of the traffic on Ras Al Khor Road. I counted more than 20 spoonbills foraging over the silty flats, while a marsh harrier, an osprey and two greater spotted eagles wheeled overhead. The most prominent birds among the reserve’s community are the large flock of flamingos, which can number well over 2,000, wading placidly on bright, candy-pink legs, or dozing with their heads tucked into their soft pink plumage.
Driving through the city with Zahed Dalati, my guide, we stopped to let some camels cross the road, a long-lashed baby scampering alongside its mother. The adult camels all had brightly coloured woven nose cones, for sale in the Nad Al Sheba market, where Zahed pulled in to show me the bundles of alfalfa and the enormous vats of date syrup that are supposed to make a racer go even faster. “If your camel eats dates, he doesn’t have to drink Red Bull,” said Zahed. The market has been on its roadside site for centuries, long before the exclusive Nad Al Sheba Club and racetrack were even dreamed of, and its car park was full of rickety old trucks, padded with carpet, used to transport the camels. Owners can also buy the robots here that are now used instead of children to ride the camels as they gallop along the racetracks; the owners follow in cars, kicking up clouds of dust, directing the robots by remote control.
(Full story can be found from belfast telegraph )