حرHURR
A saker falcon on a low wooden block on desert gravel at civil twilight, a rocky ridge low on the horizon behind.

Hurr1,012 gflown 17:42burqu’ size 4

Everything here is made
for a bird that could leave.

A falcon is not owned. It is flown free at first and last light, and it comes back, or it does not. Four benches in Al Ain, at the foot of Jebel Hafeet, making the equipment that daily consent requires.

Patternthree-piece Arab hoodsize 551 cm² kid-lined goat

Cut to one bird.

A hood that does not fit is not a lesser object; it is a cruelty. So it is cut to the individual bird, measured across the head and from beak to crown, and shaped differently for a bird taken from the nest than for one caught wild. Enter yours. The pattern is drawn as a cutter would lay it, and this same panel places the order.

The three flat pattern pieces of an Arab falcon hood, the centre block and two side panels, redrawn to the measurements entered beside them.46 mm across the head38 mm
Hurr · nest-taken · pieces shown flat, actual size 1:1.6
The bird
Size
5
Block
57 mm
Eye panel
shallow
Leather
51 cm²
Plume
heron, natural
Price
AED 1,450

We reply within two days. Nothing is charged here; the measurements come to the bench and we write back.

A falconer's leather gauntlet with a saker's yellow feet and dark talons gripping it, jesses trailing.

Mangalahمنقلةkid-linedAED 1,600–2,900

The glove is the only thing you both hold.

A falcon's grip closes at a pressure that would open a hand. The mangalah takes that and gives nothing back to the bird: four layers at the perch line, kid on the inside so the feet do not chafe, and a cuff long enough that the jesses run through the fingers without a knot.

Outer
Vegetable-tanned camel
Lining
Goat kid, undyed
Perch line
Four layers, hand-stitched
Cuff
230 mm, blocked
A leatherworker saddle-stitching a falcon hood by lantern light, dusk through the open doorway behind him.

Al Jimi, Al Ainfour benchesopen 06:00 & 17:00

Two shifts, because the birds keep them.

The bench works when the birds do, before the heat and again as it goes. Everything is stitched by hand with two needles and one thread; a machine seam has a single line that can be pulled out from either end, and nothing that goes near a bird is allowed to fail that way.

Saif learned the hood from his father, who cut for the Al Ain mews when the birds still came in from the passage. He has made eleven hundred of them and can still only make four a week.

The book1,148 hoodssince 1979

Every hood is written down against a bird.

A bird's head does not change once it is grown, so the measurements outlive the hood. When one wears through, the book gives the pattern back, and when a bird is passed on, its hood goes with it.

BirdSpeciesAcrossSizeCut
GhazalHurr47 mm52026Give the pattern back
SahimGyr-hurr50 mm62026Give the pattern back
BarqShaheen41 mm32025Give the pattern back
RimalHurr45 mm42025Give the pattern back
NahdahGyr52 mm72024Give the pattern back

The benchfour a weekwe write back in two days

What else leaves the bench.

Anything above can be ordered from the panel in the burqu’; put the piece in the note. Nothing is charged on this page.