by Charly Mann

A Chapel Hill bee that I met on Morgan Creek Road
Ever since I was very young I have loved being outside in Chapel Hill. When I was eight I would spend hours in my tree house behind my house on Old Mill Road observing the birds around me in the woods. Eventually some cardinals and blue jays would feel safe enough to perch within two feet of me.

A fly enjoying a rose petal on Coker Drive in Chapel Hill
When I was nine I became fascinated with the insects that I would find in my yard, especially the ants, bees, and flies. Flies were so common that many people, including my family, had screened-in-porches to keep them away while they enjoyed the "outdoors". I thrilled at watching flies soar through the air and marveled at their beauty when they landed on my arm. I also spent countless hours watching bees pollinate my mother's flower garden. Today my interest in the outdoors and the creatures that inhabit it has not waned, and I often enjoy photographing nature up close.

A busy bee enjoying a garden along Coker Drive in Chapel Hill
On a recent visit to Chapel Hill I took a long walk starting at where Country Club Road intersects with Raleigh Road and walked down to the end of Laurel Hill Road, before carefully crossing over the 15-501 bypass to Coker Drive where I walked on through all of Morgan Creek Road. My primary purpose was to take photographs of houses for future articles in Chapel Hill Memories, but along the way I was lucky enough to find some insect friends who allowed me to take their pictures.

A hoverfy on a bladle of grass on Laurel Hill Circle in Chapel Hill
I have not lived in Chapel Hill for twenty years, but I still spend an hour or more outside communing with nature. For many years my daughter and I have enjoyed taking photographs of the birds and butterflies that live near us, and last week I began posting some of these photographs to our new web site: oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com

Grasshopper enjoying a flower on Laurel Hill Road in Chapel Hill
Click to Add a Commentby Charly Mann
Growing up in Chapel Hill in the 1950s and 1960s I came to believe that love is the most powerful force in existence. I saw firsthand what a propelling power it was.

A picture that defines pure love, from the University of North Carolina campus in the fall of 1961
Chapel Hill is a place where if you are careful and aware, you can meet the soul you were destined to blaze a trail together with through eternity. Fairytale love affairs really do happen in this town of eternal love.

Pat Hole from the UNC class of 1946. She was chosen by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the most beautiful girl in Chapel Hill that year.

This is Roxanne Kalb from 1965. She was a senior from Suffield, Connecticut. Her major was international studies. She was involved in a wide array of campus organizations and was also President of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority and was the Senior Class Social Chairman. Her hobbies included painting, swimming, and fishing.

Charlie Hoffmam, from the University of North Carolina class of 1926, a beautiful coed with my favorite name.

Mary Thom White UNC coed clearly going places from 1960

Love blooms on the UNC campus in 1943.

Sara Rose of the UNC class of 1953

Hometown Chapel Hill beauty Ditzi Bruce from 1941

Mary Ann Henderson UNC coed from 1962. She was then a senior majoring in studio art. Her plans were to go into fashion advertising after graduation, She was a member of Chi Omega sorority. Even though her home was in New Orleans, in 1961 she was named Miss Chapel Hill. She was active in the campus YWCA and her favorite pastimes were horseback riding and water skiing.
by Charly Mann
For years I lived on the edge of Chapel Hill surrounded by Duke Forest. Looking up at the sky I enjoyed seeing a wide variety of local and migratory birds.

A rare Bald Eagle soaring over Chapel Hill near Whitfield Road
At night when the moon began to rise I often enjoyed its luminescence. There was a peaceful essence flowing from the heavens that often sparked memories of my childhood days near the woods across from Greenwood Road.

The moon rising through the winter trees of Duke Forest
by Charly Mann
Since I was very young I have loved to observe the birds that inhabit Chapel Hill. I may have inherited this tendency from my mother who had several generations of blue jays that would come into our house and eat peanuts out of her hand from our dining room table. I have learned that with patience and a tranquil disposition most birds will eventually allow you to get very close to them.

A Red-tailed Hawk soars near the shoreline of University Lake in Chapel Hill
Over the years I have found one of the best places to enjoy birds is around University Lake. Besides being the source of drinking water for Chapel Hill since 1932, many wild birds enjoy living in the trees of the heavily forested shoreline.

A Red-tailed Hawk at University Lake
I have observed many Red-tailed hawks at University Lake from late spring to early fall. These are magnificent and highly intelligent creatures that can live as long as twenty years. They are often mistakenly identified as eagles. Their diet consists primarily of snakes and rodents. They have wingspans of about five feet and are members of the falcon family. These hawks weigh as much as four pounds and their eyesight is so keen that they can clearly see a mouse a hundred feet away.

This Red Tail Hawk has just lept off a limb as she begins to descend on a prey
A great thing about red-tails is that if you know where they like to live they are relatively easy to find. Just walk or kayak around the shoreline of University Lake in late morning or early afternoon when they like to hunt and you will likely see one. If you are quiet and observant you can often get very close to these birds.

Red Tail Hawks are often camouflaged in the trees around University Lake in Chapel Hill
Walking through some of the unpsoiled forests outside of town is a great getaway from the stress, congestion and noise I find in the ever more urban Chapel Hill environment. Getting close an animal like this reminds me of the following lines from Ekhart Tolle:
"Negativity is totally unnatural. It is a psychic pollutant, and there is a deep link between the poisoning and destruction of nature and the vast negativity that has accumulated in the collective human psyche. No other life form on the planet knows negativity, only humans, just as no other life form violates and poisons the Earth that sustains it. Have you ever seen an unhappy flower or a stressed oak tree? Have you come across a depressed dolphin, a frog that has a problem with self-esteem, a cat that cannot relax, or a bird that carries hatred and resentment? The only animals that may occasionally experience something akin to negativity or show signs of neurotic behavior are those who live in close contact with humans and so link into the human mind and its insanity."
photos by Kathryn Mann
Click to Add a Commentby Charly Mann
Chapel Hill became a town because General William Davie considered the place he found to build the university and its accompanying community the most beautiful spot he had ever encountered. Since that time generations of architects, artists, and landscapers have added to this magnificence. William Meade Prince, Chapel Hill's most beloved and inspiring artist, called the town the Southern Part of Heaven, and helped create a theme of life affirmation and joy that has endured for more than sixty years.

William Meade Prince painting in Chapel Hill

Carl Boettcher carving the Circus Parade in 1948 from William Meade Prince illustration
In 1948 Prince decided to create a permanent piece of art for Chapel Hill that would capture forever the magic and spectacle of the circus. After sketching out the idea in a pen and ink drawing, his friend and fellow Chapel Hillian, master wood carver Carl Boettcher took his design and carved The Circus Parade and the accompanying circus animals. If you have not seen it, you owe it to yourself to go the UNC Alumni Center on Stadium Drive next to Kenan Stadium to view this work of art in person.

Part of the PARADE mural by Michael Brown on the wall of the Carolina Coffee Shop in Porthole Alley

This is a typical William Meade Prince painting. Like his friend Norman Rockwell, he did many magazine covers in the 1930s and 1940s.
Michael Brown, a UNC art school graduate, has continued the tradition of these two men in recent decades by painting whimsical murals on the sides of buildings throughout both Chapel Hill and Carrboro. His best mural is on Porthole Alley and is called Parade. It was directly inspired by the piece of art that Prince and Boettcher created.

This is Circus Parade Animals Under the Big Top by Kathryn Mann from 2009.
This week my favorite artist, who coincidently happens to be my daughter, has completed the next chapter in the saga of the Circus Parade. After hearing from me for years about how much I loved this work, she has created a new piece of art which takes the original designs of Prince's animals and has placed them into a circus tent with yours truly as the ringmaster. Since Prince did not color his original sketch she has finished that job for him as well.
Click to Add a CommentChapel Hill is more than a place; it is a state of mind. This collection of photographs captures the timeless essence of what we all love about this town.












All photograpghs by Gary Edens - UNC alumnus
Click to Add a Commentby Charly Mann
Much of the beauty of Chapel Hill many of us take for granted. It is easy to see and experience it if you simply go outside and walk through the surrounding woods and fields. Since I was five I have enjoyed an amazing joy and clarity when I am closely observing the bounties of beauty and the marvels of creation in our forests, along our creeks, and in nearby pastures. I have especially loved the birds I encounter on trees, fences, or on the ground. Over many decades I have become familiar with the seasonal habitats of a great variety of our feathered friends, and have learned how to get very close to many of them. For the past several years I have taken a camera with me on my walks so that I can photograph some of my favorite birds. This is the fist in a series of photographs of Chapel Hill birds that I have taken in the last three years.

Two baby Eastern Kingbirds (Summer of 2008)

Brown Thrasher Close-Up

Grey Catbird (Spring 2009)

American Golden Finch (Spring 2008)

Ruby-throated hummingbird (Sring 2009) - I captured this fellow at dusk with a professional flash.
by Charly Mann
For more than twenty-five years of my life in Chapel Hill I lived near an area off Whitfield Road near Duke Forest and across from a small pond. During the late spring and early summer hundreds of wild tiger lilies bloomed around its shore. There is a joy and beauty in the lily that affects me like no other flower, and I think this feeling may be universal. Over the decades I have found nearly a dozen places around Chapel Hill where houses once stood, or along roadsides, where other types of lilies bloom. This is a collection of my photographs of these Chapel Hill lilies.

These are fairly common if you look around. I found this one by a pond in Finley golf course.

This Lily was found off the Bolin Creek Trail in Chapel Hill

Found along the bank of Morgan Creek

Discoved in an abandoned garden by a burned down farm house off Old Chapel Hill Road

I found this Lily on Hatch Road near Highway 54 outside of Carrboro

Water Lily in pond off Whitfield Road Chapel Hill

Star Lily that I came across very near Hogan's Lake in Chapel Hill
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What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.


