Bird heading away from chicken (5)
I believe the answer is:
raven
'bird' is the definition.
(raven is a kind of bird)
'heading away from chicken' is the wordplay.
'heading away from' means to remove the first letter.
'chicken' becomes 'craven' (I've seen this before).
'craven' with its initial letter taken away is 'RAVEN'.
(Other definitions for raven that I've seen before include "Flyer" , "Largest member of crow family" , "Large blue-black bird" , "Flighty type" , "Species of crow" .)