Shahbaz (bird)

[1] It is described as having a body similar to an eagle, being bigger than a hawk or falcon, and having inhabited an area within the Zagros, the Alborz, and the Caucasus within Greater Iran.

[2][3][4] It was standard practice for the Persian Shah to keep a royal falcon or another bird of prey.

to have been the archetype for the standard of Cyrus the Great[citation needed], who founded the Achaemenid Empire.

British explorer Richard F. Burton considered the symbol to refer to the goshawk species Accipiter gentilis.

[2] Shahbaz could have alternatively referred to another common bird over the skies of the Iranian Plateau: the eastern imperial eagle, though this observation has never been claimed by historians as merited.