Featheredfriday: The Great Eagle Hunters Of Mongolia
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! Today's post is an entry for the amazing @keithboone and his #featheredfriday challenge. Even though it isn't Friday yet.
I was reading an article about a nomadic people in Mongolia, they are the Altai Kazakh of Western Mongolia, high up in the mountains. They've used Golden Eagles and also falcons to hunt for food and clothing in the form of mostly rabbits, fox and wolves but wolves are the highly sought after prize.
This has been a centuries old tradition for their people but has only recently been discovered by the outside world and Westerners. Now they hold an annual festival where the hunters, and huntresses, compete in competition with their eagle hunting partners.
The Kazakh people grow up with these majestic birds of prey, both falcons and eagles. They capture the birds when they are very young and still in their nests. Usually this means they have to scale cliffs in order to reach the nests, then the birds are raised as part of the family.
They don't keep the birds for the bird's entire lives though, because they believe the birds should be free so they set them free after some years, some as long as ten years.
I was astounded when I saw the amazing photos of the Kazakh people and their birds. Here are just a few of them starting with three different huntresses.
Here are a few scenes from the annual Mongolian Eagle Hunters Festival:
Here's a young hunter-in-training, notice the falcon to the left, they start the little kids out with the smaller birds:
source
Here are just some random photos:
Thanks for reading folks! I could go on with dozens of fascinating photos that I found and I hope you enjoyed these selected few. It's a world and lifestyle that most of us didn't even know existed!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:
Your parakeet knows the phrase "Open up; police!"
You're moving up in the steem world Lord Janton! 64 rep, $10+ post payouts, must be a relief now all that hard work and research is paying off! Soon you'll have a Mongolian come over and inaugurate you with a Golden Eagle and a prize at the next festival :)
Something a little different from you here, a man of many talents, true redneck historian! See I can be nice ;)
haha! well sir, I used to do a wide variety of topics including alot of nutrition and recipes but it was always a big hassle to find a different topic to talk about each day. Like today, I have no idea what to post about or if I can even get one out today. The series make it much easier because obviously I don't have to search for a topic. But if I wasn't trying to place high in the engagement league then it would be easy, the way it is I spend all my time commenting when I'd like to be researching and posting.
But, if I was big enough, it would be even more fun to just comment and not have to worry about posting, that's the true laziness coming out! lol.
As far as the pay outs, no, unless I buy votes the pay outs are under $2.00! lol. so my account hasn't grown in that area at all. I'm still stuck there. But I would love to experience the Mongolian eagle hunts! wow.
I love your different topics! The Amish one and this one is excellent. Variety is the spice of live young Jonboy! 😀
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haha! thank you sir blanchy. yeah there is a place for this variety but I also like my specialty and people are asking me where the Western stories are? lol. I like both but it's nice to have a niche. I'll try to do both.
That is so fascinating. The photos that you found are marvelous. I had read a book a while back where the heroine was the head of lumber crews and they had a huge problem with men getting bitten by snakes. She knew of those eagles and arranged to acquire one for herself and she got a lot of attention from the men when she walked around with the eagle on her arm.
Howdy Melinda! yes, I was blown away by the photos I saw. It's a whole nother world like stepping back in time!
That's a great story about the lady with the eagle, yeah that would get alot of attention!
The woman was rough and tough... Keeping all those Lumberjacks in line, and riding around with an eagle made her appear even tougher!
Thanks so much for taking all the time to choose the Engagement Contest winners! I really appreciate it. I'm already thinking about doing another one, and would love input from you on an efficient way to set it up and judge it. There's got to be a way to make it work.
Howdy tonight Melinda! I'm finally back and trying to make up some ground tonight. My pleasure to help with the contest! It was a great idea. What would the next one be? You already are doing the shadow contest.
I want to keep promoting engagement. Maybe something similar but with different rules and different criteria for choosing the winner
Talk about a really rich culture
Howdy empress! Yes Ma'am it is nothing like I've ever seen before!
Are you posting again? shoot, I keep forgetting to check because I
got used to you being gone!
So Beautiful
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Howdy today on this fine Friday samaras221! Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
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Howdy there esteemapp! Thank you so much for the upvote and for your excellent platform!
Such an awesome post and back when I travelled I always wanted to go there and see the Eagle hunters, but never made it there
howdy JJ! oh, you traveled overseas in that direction too? Wow, I never even knew about such things until recently, I mean the hunting with eagles. I saw a couple of videos showing the kills though, not for the faint hearted or vegans but that's nature.
Hard to believe that they can take out wolves but the video I saw showed one knocking the wolf down and then another was right there to help.
Indeed they are pretty amazing what they can attack, I never made it to Mongolia, even though I have a couple of colleagues from there who would have arranged everything for me, and I have been to a lot of places over 60 countries
holy cow! 60 countries! Were you taking lots of pictures then? I mean it sounds like you have tons of posting material there!
Sadly noo most of that time was in the period I wasn't into photography, just a few countries near the end of my travelling days
oh rats! You could have had years of posting material! lol.
You could take us to a different country every wednesdaywalk!
yeah I have to admit it does frustrate me I never was into photography then, would have made for many interesting posts
but I do have some photos from some places such as the taxi crew in Uganda one day :)
ha! oh how interesting JJ! The taxis are motorcycles there? wow. That's a great shot.
Wow....!!
Absolutely Fantastic photos
@janton
The Raptors, people and landscape
Wow... Most beautiful.
:D
howdy annephilbrick! aren't they stunning? there were so many breath-taking photos that I wanted to use! I'll probably do another post because the whole story is so interesting and it's like something out of the ancient past!
Hello..!!!
@janton
Very Stunning....!!!!
Another post we be awesome..
The people and their attire most beautiful ...
howdy again tonight annephilbrick! Oh I know, I was so astounded. lol. Some of the people were wearing furs from their boots to their hats! I mean, some people will have a problem with the furs and them killing even if it's for food and clothing but that's been their way of life for who knows how long.
Interesting titbit about the Mongolian people. Absolutely beautiful pictures.
howdy sir Vincent! Have you ever been over that way? It looks like something you would do. You know, climb a mountain and let the eagle go get some fresh food!
What!? me climb a mountain? haha... that will be the day.
I am more the - good book, nice drink by the pool or beach - kind of person.
haha! yeah me too actually. I'd like to be able to climb a mountain but I don't know. Depends on how much time I had! lol.
You got a 15.78% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @janton! :)
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Howdy there ocdb! Thank you for the upvote and all you do to help us Steemians! God bless you!
That's a terrific post, welcome to FeatheredFriday! Two weeks in a row! :-) EXcellent photos you found. Isn't that amazing to see? What a way of life. It just proves never hunt with a Falcon... Go big or go home!
Voted & resteemed. Here's my hunting buddy... and her bird.
haha! oh my gosh you would have to show me up with an unbelievable eagle hunter shot! lol. That is fabulous, where is that taken at? Yeah, I was totally amazed to find out about those hunting eagles. I watched one of the videos of them taking out a wolf, amazing. A whole different world those people live in.
I shot the eagle and the girl in Duncan, BC at the Raptor Centre. I shot the moon through my window and then I stuck the two photos together in Photoshop. So it's a kind of a fake, but based on my photos :-)
Oh wow sir Keith, it's a fabulous fake! lol. Yeah they might not even hunt at night, I don't know but the effects of the two together was phenomenal!
By the way, can you tell if something is photoshopped?
Took me forever to make this... many hours, I'm not kidding. There are people who can do a much better job than me. The trick is always to zoom in as close as possible and you can see where things are merged together. It shows in places on my shot I'm sure. Probably around the edges of the girls hair
Wow that is amazing sir keith, I had no idea. Someday they'll the technology to be an automatic process I'm sure, but that is very interesting.
The software gets better all the time. I should call this Digital Art instead of "fake photo".
haha! well that would be a more accurate description I guess because it sure isn't fake photos. You could fake me out all day long with those photoshopped ones!