Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the beginning of the modern environment movement. And, serendipitously, “our” Ospreys returned to their nest overlooking Great Cove yesterday. We got a few images and are about to go out and try to get more. Curiously, \this year three Ospreys returned to the nest, a number not conducive to peaceful mating. But, they seem to get along and call loudly to each other when flying, contributing to our unsilent spring. Perhaps last year’s single offspring followed its parents back to its birthplace.
Ospreys are beneficiaries of the environmental movement. As with many other birds in the 1950s and 1960s, Ospreys were dying off due to chemical sprays containing DDT and other toxic mixtures that eventually poisoned their food chain. Then, Rachael Carson’s inspiring book Silent Spring was published in 1962. It created a firestorm of concern about the largely overlooked environment that was becoming a hazard to humans and other animals. In 1969, a gigantic oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, outraged the newly sensitized “environmentalists” who organized massive demonstrations.
Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) was sympathetic and began organizing activists and groups for nation-wide annual teach-ins and presentations focused on the need to protect the deteriorating environment. The first of these Earth Day events occurred on April 22, 1970. (Brooklin, Maine)