A few days ago I randomly asked my teacher how to say owl in Chinese. He told me it was 猫头鹰 māotóuyīng. Directly translated this means "cat-head hawk" which I find to be great descriptive word for owl.
He then told me a joke about owls, which I will out of pure kindness bestow upon you:
有一天，森林里举行动物知识回答比赛。
One day, in the forest a animal knowledge competition was being held.
主持人问：猫会爬树吗？
The host asks: Can cats climb trees?
老鹰特别快地回答：会。
The hawk quickly answers: yes.
主持人说：请给我一个例子。
The host says: please give me an example.
这时老鹰就非常伤感地说：有一天晚上，猫偷偷地爬上了树，把我给…………于是就有了猫头鹰!
At this time the hawk with great sadness responds: one evening, a cat snuk up the tree and slept with me....... so then we have cat-head hawks!
If you don't get the subtle comedy, the cat climbed up the tree and went to town on the hawk. The owl is the abomination of that unholy union.
Final summation: The way words are created in the Chinese language is often very practical. If you know the meaning of the individual characters of a compound word, you can often guess the meaning of the word!
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