Author: Chris Bing

October 2026

After buying and watching the DVD “The Eagle Huntress” it had always been my ambition to visit Mongolia and view the event. We booked a tour to view the Golden Eagle Festival in September 2026. This is the smaller of the 2 major annual events but it allows greater flexibility for photographers to roam around as the crowds are much smaller. I have never seen so many photographers with such big lenses. It made me feel inadequate…..The event is held over 2 days with the main events (from a tourists point of view) being on the first day. As you can see from my images the majority of “keepers” were taken on day one. There were so many good images that I posted them as individual pictures rather in a gallery. Day one was divided into my favourites and then the second favourites. The galleries consist of my happy snappies for that day.

But before looking at the photographs check out the video taken by my tour group friend Marcin Czerniakow with his mobile phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6hUVH7PazY&list=PPSV

Its absolutely amazing and gives context to my images.

Day One (and previous day)

No 1 favourites

No 2 Favourites

Day Two

Day one as mentioned before had the most exciting events from a photographers point of view. The parade of over 60 eagle hunters coming from a distance below the horizon and galloping towards us was like a movie, but in real life. So dramatic. Then we had the competitions of the eagle flying from the hill to the handler and landing on his or her arm. Not every eagle found “home”.

Day Two as you see here consisted of the following events

The Chase involved the woman chasing the man and whipping him with the stick. Real life or just a game, I’m not sure….

In one competition the Eagle had to fly from the distant hill and land on the fresh meat being dragged by the handlers horse. I suppose it was replicating chasing a fox.

Then there was “Tenge ilu” which was a coin grabbing game where the rider had to pick up and toss the pink bag of “gold”.

But the game that took the longest as there were so many competitors was the tug of war. This is called “kokpar” where two riders compete trying to wrestle the goat carcass from each other

Ulgii is the town closest to where the Eagle Festival happens. We stayed in gers and we were transported to the event in these Russian 4WD vans. These vans were crude, but strong and reliable. No seat belts, no airconditioning and hard suspension. But they were fun and I love the concept and shape of these things. Why do we havc such big SUVs in the West? These vehicles were so practical for carting around people and goods.

I wandered around our campsite in Ulgii early in the morning to get some of these photos.