Falconry | Hood Training
Since returning to falconry after Christmas, we have been looking at doing hood training with some of the birds. The reason for this is to allow the birds to become more comfortable wearing the hood. Falcons and other birds of prey are very complex hunters with their eyes being their main strength, to combat this, hoods are used to keep the birds calm and ensure that they aren’t always on ‘attack mode’. Another reason to hood the birds are to ensure that they are totally relaxed, when in the early stages of training a bird; their hood should only be removed for feeding. This helps to make all interactions with their trainer positive.
The bird one of the learners was helping to train was Roman (he is a Saker falcon crossed with a Gyrfalcon), he is used to the hood as he has worn it previously. This has helped the learners with getting Roman used to wearing the hood again, we have also been working with Roman since September. To allow Roman to be comfortable around the hood again, we were told to stroke his chest with the hood and allowed him to smell it. This should help him familiarise and be comfortable again it.
The bird which struggled the most with the hood was Sam; he is a very big and proud Golden Eagle who likes to be the bird in charge. With him having to wear the hood, it will take away the feeling of being in charge and feeling like the leader. Because of this John (from Falconry), kept placing the hood on him but he kept shaking his head and trying to kick the hood off. We need to keep being consistent with Sam’s hood training to make him as good as Roman. This means we must persevere and be resilient, particularly when things don’t go to plan and the birds struggle as they need to be reassured and need our patience.