This powerful falcon is found in steppe country and desert plains and feeds mainly on ground-living creatures. As a hunting bird the Saker falcon was trained by Indians and Arabs to catch hares, bustards, and even gazelles but Gould believed that its reputation for courage was considered among falconers to be not as great as that of the Peregrine or Gyrfalcon.
The name 'Saker' is of Arab origin, and was used for many centuries as a general word for falcons. When the Arab word was adopted by Europeans it sometimes became confused with the Latin 'Sacer' meaning 'sacred'. This error even led to the bird being wrongly associated with the sacred falcon of Egyptian mythology.
For a greater knowledge of falconry birds, Gould drew attention to the magnificent Traité de Fauconnerie by Schlegel and Wulverhorst, 1844-53, illustrated by Wolf.
Wolf's illustration depicts a female falcon from the collection of Lord Lilford (1833-1896). Wolf later made several drawings of birds of prey for Lord Lilford, which Thorburn adapted for the first illustrations in Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands, 1885-1898.
The female falcon is almost lifesize, and a young bird is in the distance.
DISTRIBUTION: Southeastern Eurasia: locally from eastern Europe east across central Russia to southwestern Siberia and northern China, and south to Turkey, northern Iraq and Iran. Winters from the Mediterranean region east to northern India and Tibet, and south to northeastern Africa