![]() ![]() “Good morning, Howard,” the sheikh calls out to the lanky, bald man in glasses standing next to me. Pani, one of the sheikh’s aides, hands me a cup of tea and hustles to prepare the lure for the first trainee. Watch for more stories, books, and events throughout the year. National Geographic is partnering with the National Audubon Society, BirdLife International, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to celebrate the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. (Considering that falcons have been zealously collected throughout history by Assyrian rulers, Viking chiefs, Russian tsars, Mongol khans, and practically every English monarch from Alfred the Great to George III, this is indeed quite a claim. They represent only a few of the hundreds of birds the sheikh owns, which arguably compose one of the most exquisite collections of falcons ever assembled. Together the group contains lineages that cut across Europe, Asia, and the wilds of the Arctic. There are chocolate and cream peregrines, white speckled gyrfalcons, dusky brown sakers, and hybrids of different species. Each day Sheikh Butti (pronounced BOO-tee), his son Maktoum, and their retinue rise at four in the morning and drive more than an hour into the desert to train their birds before the scorching heat of the day.Īs the sky brightens, I see that the 12 pillars are hooded falcons on perches, silently awaiting the day’s training. It is October, and falconers in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) are busy training their birds for hunting and the upcoming racing season. Here in the silent landscape of his ancient Bedouin forebears, the sheikh finds peace with his falcons. There, a cascade of concerns and obligations awaits Sheikh Butti-corporate board decisions, real estate deals, royal family matters, requests for counsel from across the Middle East, Europe, and beyond. On the horizon it’s possible to see the shimmer of the Dubai skyline, a place transformed from a tiny backwater into a hypermodern port city by the sheikh’s uncle, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum. Nearby, the silhouettes of 12 small pillars mark the foot of a dune, at the top of which a man is setting up a folding table to serve tea. The velvet sand is cool, and the tracks from the night wanderings of a desert fox crisscross the area. ![]() The blue light of dawn reveals the shadowed contours of the Arabian desert as Sheikh Butti bin Maktoum bin Juma al Maktoum and his son kneel in prayer. This story appears in the October 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine. ![]()
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