Rachel Carson was a quiet, unassuming lady who changed the world. She was an award winning scientist and writer who is credited by many with helping to launch an environmental movement in the United States in the 1960s. Central to Carson's writing was the view that a human being is merely one part of the complex natural world, not superior to other life forms. She conceded man's extraordinary ability to alter nature, but emphasized the often negative and irreversible impact of his activities. Her views were radical, bordering on heresy at the time. But the quiet one persisted.

Disturbed by the wanton use of synthetic pesticides after WW 2, Carson warned the world of the potentially disastrous effects in Silent Spring, her most influential book and winner of the National Book Award. Despite counterattacks by chemists and the government, she testified before Congress in 1963, while dying of breast cancer, calling for new policies to protect human health and nature. Her courageous work eventually led to a ban of DDT in the United States and many other countries. This ban was responsible for the resurgence in osprey, eagle, and peregrine falcon populations in the last few decades. All have been removed from the list of endangered species.

The osprey certainly has to be one of nature's most perfect avian machines. Beautiful to look at with an unmistakable call, they are most famous for their dive-plunges into bodies of water from heights of 50 to 100 feet. About half the time they emerge from the depths with a fish which they carry, torpedo-like, back to their nest or a perch, to feed themselves or their young. This one was photographed at Pine Island Sound off Sanibel Island of Florida.