The Seattle Street-Smart Naturalist, livre ebook

Back to the city, or back to nature? Seattle author David Williams shows us how we can get the best of both. Botany and bugs, geology and geese, and creeks and crows; living in a major city doesn't have to separate us from the natural world. Stepping away from a guidebook format, Williams presents the reader with a series of essays and maps that weave personal musings, bits of humor, natural history observations, and scientific data into a multi-textured perspective of life in the city--descriptions of his journeys as a naturalist in an urban landscape. 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.
What these stories and my adventures in Seattle confirm for me is that you don't have to go to exotic places to find interesting natural history stories, despite what you might see on the Discovery Channel or in the pages of National Geographic. These fine purveyors of nature leave you with the distinct feeling that nature is out there, away from most people's ordinary lives. They fail to show that stories are in our yards, under our feet, and on the walls of our buildings. Stories and nature are all around us, if we take the time to look and wonder.
Acknowledgments – 7, Introduction – 9, The Eagles – 12, The Fault – 28, The Plants – 42, The Creek – 60, The Stone – 80, The Geese – 94, The Bugs – 108, The Weather – 124, The Hills – 138, The Invaders – 154, The Water – 168, The Crows – 186, Notes – 203,