The hunter
gently pulls off the falcon's hood. The bird's gaze swivels from one end of the
horizon to the other, stopping momentarily to spy the hare in the distance.
With a shout, "Hah!" the hunter releases the falcon. It ascends with two flaps
of its 5-foot wingspan, then swoops downward in a blink-of-an-eye glide that
ends with the bird's 3-inch talons clutching the rabbit's head.
Later, at the
top of a lone hillock, the hunter, Ablykhan Zbasov, explains what tethers him
to a sport practiced by his forefathers 3,000 years ago, a casualty of the
Soviet era now gradually making its way back to the Kazakh plains.
"When you
hunt with a rifle, this is not interesting," says Zbasov, 30, his boyish
face reddened by a bracing steppe wind. "But when you have the bird and
your horse with you, you feel united with nature. It's really beautiful. You
never forget the bird's grasp of your wrist, how powerful it is."
(Embassy of the
Republic of Kazakhstan website)
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