Blair Boulevard is nestled in the heart of one of the oldest parts of Nashville. The Belmont-Hillsboro Historic District was once a large plantation owned by Adelicia Acklen before it was divided among multiple families in the late 1890s. The area was then further divided when, in 1901, the Belmont Land Company purchased what would become 21st Avenue to create a streetcar line. Soon the once sparsely-populated farms had become a fresh suburban neighborhood populated by young families buying their first homes. Since then, Blair Boulevard has been called home by the accomplished academics of Vanderbilt and Belmont Universities, gifted musicians and, recently, a new family of screech owls.
Following Winter Storm Fern, many trees fell, and the homes of thousands of animals were destroyed, but Nashville began to warm up more quickly than usual. The remarkably warm weather jolted the city back to life as flowers blossomed and greenery returned to the few trees left standing. And one of those trees became home to a pair of displaced screech owls, a species that often mates for life. Screech owls aren’t a new thing for the Belmont community; many locals have seen screech owls come and go during their time on Blair. Despite the destruction of their home, which screech owls often live in for their entire lives, these owls could not relocate because the mother owl was gravid, meaning she was carrying an egg. While Blair has many upsides that have attracted young couples for over a century, like the neighborhood schools, classic Nashville restaurants and the wonder-filled Dragon Park, it is unlikely that this is why the owls chose 2518 Blair Boulevard to be their home.
2518’s largest remaining tree, an old, gnarled hackberry, stands in front of the house between the sidewalk and the road. While hackberries are generally viewed as ugly with their knotted bark and weed-like tendencies, this tree’s large green canopy graciously contributes to the shady sidewalk that hundreds of neighbors walk up and down each day. Many of Blair’s walkers never looked up, often distracted by accident-prone children learning to bike up and down the uneven sidewalks of Blair Boulevard. But inconspicuously placed and merely a foot above eye level is a large hollow in the silver-barked tree, which the owls of Blair would call their new emergency home.
While the first sightings of adult owls started weeks before, the first adolescent chirps were heard on April 18th, many local schools’ prom night. One by one late-night walkers experienced the magical cries of newborn owls. At first the walkers each stood frozen, looking around them for the source of the fractured song, before looking up the silver trunk of the hackberry to find pairs of golden eyes looking back. And slowly, at dinner tables and park outings, the word spread, and people exchanged their photos. Every night, people marched to the tree to see the owls and sauntered back home. And every morning people waited to catch a photo of the babies before rushing off to work.
A series of popular Nextdoor posts caught the attention of a local news channel, which coincided with the most harrowing day in a young owl’s life. The morning before the reporters were supposed to arrive, one baby owl fell from its nest and cowered under a neighbor’s bush, and hawks were seen circling overhead as the baby bird wailed from beneath a bush. Neighbors worked together to help the bird, including a local wildlife expert, but as the owl wailed more and more, one heroic neighbor took charge. They quickly jumped to action, capturing the owl and putting it in a cardboard box lined with blankets before returning it to the nest with the help of the wildlife expert.
And now, as The Garden Tour approaches, the owls have left the nest, narrowly avoiding the potential influx of gregarious visitors. The small owls, only 8 or 9 inches tall, had survived a storm that devastated Nashville and persisted to rear two baby owls to full health. And while they have left their hackberry, young screech owls are territorial and often don’t disperse more than two miles from where they were born. So if you see any owls flying down Blair Boulevard, they might just be the same owls that persevered through the ice storm and brought joy and wonder to an entire community.
