Shelton Ayers Styers and I became next-door neighbors on Nottingham Road in the fall of 1954, just weeks before Hurricane Hazel hit Greensboro. While we both grew up and left home, we eventually returned to our respective childhood homes, she with her husband, Stan, and I with my wife, Carolyn. Then, in the spring of 2022, we found ourselves unexpectedly involved with another family altogether.

Somewhere around mid-March of that year, Carolyn and I were out in our front yard when we heard quite a ruckus coming from crows who were perched in the magnolia tree in the park, just across the creek. Almost immediately after, the crows chased a sizable bird into one of the two large beech trees in our yard. That bird was a barred owl.

In the days that followed, we determined that activity had been taking place in a cavity high up in the beech nearest our driveway. Shelton and Stan grew interested, too, and Shelton, an excellent amateur photographer, began taking snapshots with her trusty Nikon D700.

She captured the mother owl, filling the opening to the cavity itself. Later, we noticed, that owl began leaving the site regularly, often returning with something in her beak for feeding. Once, while she was away, we spotted the downy feathers of a baby owlet for the first time, halfway back in the cavity. Soon, a second owlet was seen lurking behind the first.

By the middle of April, the owlets were preparing to leave their nest, boldly but barely emerging from the cavity and testing their wings. Soon, our driveway was a neighborhood hotspot as daily walkers passed by and, along with us, checked in on the owlets’ progress.

When they finally made the leap out of the tree, it was not a pretty sight! Barred owlets, we’d read, can’t just fly out of their nest. They typically do something called “branching,” where they make their way to lower, smaller limbs of their host tree before falling to the ground below. In this case, that was our driveway.

Owlets, we learned, then have to go through an arduous process of making their way to other trees, where they climb their way upward once again. The mother owl is always nearby, following her brood’s every move! Flying lessons follow for several weeks after that. Papa owl, also very involved, delivers meals around the clock and is a very feisty protector. We’ve often seen him ward off disruptive crows.

We were all so invested that it felt like a personal victory when those owlets flew the coop for good. We waited and watched excitedly the following year after learning that owls often return to nest in the same tree.

But nothing happened. We’d all but given up hope when, this past February, Carolyn spotted the mama owl.

Once again, neighbors came together to witness the wonder of nature in our driveway. We watched as a single owlet matured and eventually took that first leap; old friends reconnected and new ones were made. Shelton, ever the photographer, documented it all.

We’re hoping it won’t be another four years before the owls make their nest in our front yard, but, as Shelton and I both know, you can always come home to old friends.  OH

Ed Hines, a Greensboro native, recently completed a memoir dating back to the early 1940s when his parents and Shelton’s parents, who were close friends, bought adjoining Nottingham lots for $1,000 each.