May 3 – Owlet no. 4 left the nest at 3:42 AM (on the same night owlet no. 3 left the nest, just on a different side of midnight). Neither 3 nor 4 made the remarkable flights to the hackberry trees at the back of my yard that nos. 1 and 2 did. Instead, they headed off to the side, first into a crepe myrtle tree that abuts the nest box tree, and from there through two of my neighbor's trees (in the latter of which they spent the day to the consternation of many of the local songbirds). After sunset, their dual food begging from that tree made their location clear.
Owlets 1 and 2 remain, presumably, in the hackberries and adjoining trees, since those provide much better cover and far more scope for movement. (Also, every year's owlets end-up in those hackberries, probably for the aforementioned reasons.)
Owlet no. 4’s exit left no. 5 alone in the nest box. Rather than encouraging no. 5 to leave the nestbox, Mme. Owl seems to have gone to extra lengths to look after him/her in the nest, delivering a mouse that night, and visiting the nest box on three occasions during the day. (Which is probably the reason that the local songbirds were aware of the location of nos. 3 and 4; Mme. Owl was probably roosting with them in between her visits to the nest box. If so, her mate would have been roosting with nos. 1 and 2.)
owlet 5, 11 pm central time - ain't going nowhere
He looks pretty proud to be King of the roost now!
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Linda! 
