Hoods

Two patterns

The Dutch hood is made over a hood block, which makes it slow and difficult to complete. Its advantage, beyond looks, is stiff solid construction that makes it easier to get onto a difficult bird. The Indian hood is lighter and easier to make and fit, especially around the sensitive mouth and nostrils, and most North American falconers prefer it. Anglo hoods are easily made without a block.

H.J. Slijper's "canon" is a geometrical formula based on head measurements, used to develop a hood pattern that fits a given bird with a glued, seamless hood.

Braces

The braces are the straps at the back of the hood used to open and close it. Striking the braces is loosening them; striking the hood is taking the hood off. Both are meanings of "strike," alongside the moment of impact on quarry.

The giant hood

A giant hood is a box that covers the whole bird, used for transport and for calming. For a passage hawk it may be useful for the entire season.

Hooding a first red-tail

Your objective when hooding your first bird is simple and slightly humbling: be patient, calm, relaxed, and give it a good try. Hooding is not a contest and it is not urgent. A bird that gets hood-shy from a rushed early session stays hood-shy for a long time. And on Kestrels, most falconers skip hoods entirely: the birds tame so completely that a hood adds little and is very difficult to fit.