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/skritʃ aʊl/ Listen

Screech owl

noun

Any owl that has a screeching cry.

Small North American owl having hornlike tufts of feathers whose call sounds like a quavering whistle. Synonym: Otus asio.

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Etymology of 'Screech owl'

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"Screech owl" Quotes from Famous Books

... and nuthatches, hunting through the winter woods, make a discovery that brings every bird within hearing to the spot,—they spy out the screech owl hiding in the thick of a hemlock-tree. What an event it is in the day's experience! It sets the ...

— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge ...

— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... A few woodcocks, snipe, and wildfowl also visit us. In the winter the short-eared owls come; they are rarer than their long-eared relatives, who stay with us all the year. The common barn owl, of a white, creamy colour, is the screech owl that we hear on summer nights. Brown owls are the ones that ...

— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs