Rescued Screech Owlets at Cape Ann Wildlife. All photographs by the author.

On June 17, 2025, a neighbor had a dead tree taken down in her yard and agreed to let us take the wood. Unbeknownst to anyone, the dead tree was home to a small family of red-morph Northern Screech Owls. While my husband, Mike, was chopping up the wood, he heard a small noise. He followed the sound, and in a small hole in a cut portion of the tree was a dirty and extremely put-out owlet, sitting on top of a much smaller, far quieter second owlet. Mike showed me the birds and I called my dad—a long-time bird lover who studied birds—to help.

The recently hatched owlets were in a nest cavity 20 feet above the ground when the tree fell. While Mike and my dad pulled them from the hole and checked for others, I called our local veterinarian’s office. They gave us the name of a wildlife rehabilitator in New Hampshire who explained that he could not take the owlets across state lines and directed me to MassWildlife’s website for licensed wildlife rehabilitators.