An owl, 鸱鸮, screeched from the dead tree at night.
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history
鸱 is not used alone in modern Chinese. It is the classical word for an owl or kite, surviving in 鸱鸮 (owl) and the historical name 鸱夷 (a leather wine bag, also a byname of the strategist Fan Li). It joins 氐 for the sound with the bird radical 鸟.
register
Classical and bound - found in old texts and the fixed names 鸱鸮 and 鸱夷, not in everyday speech.
