Once a lifeline for desert-dwelling bedouin, falcons now enjoy all the perks of five-star health care when they fall sick.

In the UAE’s only falcon hospital, these pampered birds are fed vitamin tablets and quails to nurse them back to health.

Margit Muller, director of the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital, now sees up to 5,000 of the birds a year. She attributes the number to the growing popularity of falconry in the UAE. “There are very few falconers elsewhere in the world,” she said. “Today, the high peak of falconry is here in Abu Dhabi.”

The hospital, located near Bani Yas Graveyard and on the outskirts of the city, is nonetheless a hive of activity.

As well as a treatment centre and surgery given over solely to falcons, the hospital has also grown to include a falcon hotel and well-equipped kennels, which Muller describes as ‘an Emirates Palace for cats and dogs’.

It has also begun to attract a steady stream of sightseers, and the number of guided tours hosted by the hospital has increased from two a week last year, to two tours a day.

The level of interest is largely due in part to the cultural significance that is attached to falconry, which is different from that in the western world.

“In the Middle Ages, falconry was also a sport of kings and the aristocracy. Falconry was conducted as a sport and as entertainment,” she said.

“Here, it has a completely different background. Bedouins relied on them for food, so there was a special bond. “They were integrated into the bedouin’s family like a child, like a son or like a daughter,” she said. “Even today, they have the same position within the family. They sit in the majlis with the family and they have their own place in the car.”

The saker falcon is the national bird of the UAE, and its stylized image is the heraldry for the majority of government departments.

In 2007, the UAE became the first country to issue falcon passports. Muller said that it came about because of an increased demand from falconers to take their birds out of the country to hunt. “Hunting is prohibited in the UAE,” she said. “This means that if you want to go on a hunting trip you have to go abroad to North Africa, to Pakistan or to Uzbekistan.”

Because falcons are an endangered species under the CITES convention, the passport was created to speed up the transit of the animals.

To make matters easier, UAE airline Emirates and Etihad also allow falcons to be carried into the passenger cabin of the aircraft without a transport box.

The Falcon Hospital first opened its doors in 1999, but has increased piecemeal since then to become an international institution.

The hospital now has a world-class surgery, with an endoscopy unit which transmits images to a screen in the waiting room where concerned owners can watch the action live.

The bond between owner and falcon is often evident when the bird has been hospitalised, Muller said.

“It’s the same as if your son or daughter is in hospital and you pay a visit to entertain them,” she said. “Falcons are not really birds,” she added. “They are the children of the bedouin.”