Festival of Falconry 2017

Three years back I took the kids to the Falconry Festival, which then was held at the Al Forsan grounds not far from where we live. It was an amazing experience and we had so much fun, looking around the booths, doing the childrens activities, watching displays and the big parade.
This year the festival was back for it's 4th edition, and I managed to convince Linnea and Nathan to come along, this time it was at Khalifa Park.

This is still the largest festival of its kind worldwide, with the participation of 500 falconers, experts, researches and delegates from over 80 different countries; but, I must admit I was a bit disappointed of this years edition.

I guess my expectations were sky high from the success of last time's visit, but it just didn't seem as organised, or big. There wasn't many people at all when we were there.
Neither could I really find any information of the program online, which meant we just struck luck happening to be there for one of the Arena shows.

We saw some representatives from the Al Ain Zoo show off their big birds.

Ah well, it still was a nice afternoon out in the fresh air; and I do enjoy every opportunity I have learning more about the traditions of this country. To learn about the efforts to preserve the art of falconry and its longstanding heritage is really interesting.