The Street-Smart Naturalist:

Field Notes from Seattle By David B. Williams WestWinds Press

224 pages $14.95

Back to the city, or back to nature? In his newest book, author and WBA member David Williams shows us how we can get the best of both. Botany and bugs, geology and geese, creeks and crows; living in a major city doesn’t have to separate us from the natural world. Stepping away from a typical guidebook format, Williams presents the reader with a series of essays that weave personal musings, bits of humor, natural history observations, and scientific data into a multi-textured perspective of life in the city.

Through explorations as diverse as walking the length of Thornton Creek, bicycling to the top of the Seven Hills of Seattle, and going out in the field with an urban crow researcher, Williams addresses questions that an observant person asks in an urban environment. What did Seattle look like before Europeans got here? How does the area’s geologic past affect us? Why have some animals thrived and other languished? How are we affected by the species with whom we share the urban environment and how do we affect them? This book captures all of the distinctive flavors of the Emerald City, urban and natural.

For more information including an outline of each chapter, visit David Williams’ website at: www.seanet.com/~wingate/ This book will be available in May.

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