GREEN NEWS & VIEWS
Rachel Carson... ...continued from page 35
In 1958 correspondence from another friend, Olga Owens Huckins of Duxbury, Massachusetts, made Carson painfully aware of an in - creasing threat to birds. Huckins included a letter she had penned to The Boston Globe about a recent aerial spraying of DDT that resulted in the death of songbirds on her property and asked Carson for help with the matter. Having been keenly aware of DDT’s deleterious effect on wildlife since the mid-1940s through her work in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Carson realized she must now take action. After unsuccessful - ly pitching the idea of a story on the devastating ecological threat posed by indiscriminate synthetic pesticide use to friends and colleagues like E.B. White at The New Yorke r, she realized she would have to be the author of such a story, and said as much to White, “It was something I believed in so deeply that there was no other course; nothing that ever happened made me even consider turning back… I told you once that if I kept silent I could never again listen to a veery’s song without overwhelming self-reproach.” The rest was environmental history. Preserving Carson’s Resolve As we will soon share in our museum for Rachel Carson in Silver Spring, bird song served as a constant reminder of her essential love for both the natural world and the friends and family whose relation- ships sustained her, compelling her to take an incredible stand in their defense. In this moment, however, the winter season gives us the perfect opportunity to turn gently inwards and reflect on our habits, actions, and intentions. What is it that leads us to good in our natural world, especially when that responsibility feels challenging? Can we open ourselves to connect with its sounds, smells, and feel in such a way that nature eventually guides us through what is uncertain, tiring, and
Wood Thrush publication, Carson found an engaging social life that would also inform her career as a writer. Ornithologists, biologists, and nature writers such as Roger Tory Peterson, Louis Halle, Edwin Way Teale, Chan Robbins, and Alexander Wetmore were among ANS members and editors at the time, providing a dynamic space for con- versations about bird population trends, habitat conservation, and synthetic pesticides. Louis Halle, who wrote the beautiful and profound Spring in Wash - ington , introduced Carson to the bird whose song carried “an unearth- ly quality” that would become her favorite: the veery. Over many years, Rachel wrote of these encounters in letters to her dear friend Dorothy, their love for the inconspicuous thrush and its song becoming a vital touchpoint in their relationship.
It’s like no bird song I have ever heard. As long as I live I shall never forget my first veery — heard in Rock Creek Park in a green woodland twilight. How I did wish you were with me last night! For we heard the veeries most beautifully in the very spot where I first heard them, with almost the same magical effect… the first so far off in the woods, or so faint, that I had to hold my breath to hear at all. But oh — unmistakably! — a vee- ry… they seem never to sing in chorus, but responsively, one voice quickly answering another… “of a spirit not to be discovered” as [Louis] Halle said.
36—PATHWAYS—Winter 24-25
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