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. "...we can learn much about our environment by paying closer attention to bits of nature we pass by everyday." -- Seattle Audubon Society, September 2005 "Best Urban Nature Writer"--Williams has hunted up the obscure and notable quirks of the natural world within our city... -- Best of Seattle, August 3-9 2005 "Each chapter...features a topic of interest to the hiker-naturalist-historian..." -- Washington Trails "Even if you are not familiar with Seattle...there is plenty to relate to in this book." -- The Ledger, September 8, 2005 "For anybody thinking that cities are only concrete, asphalt and grassy lawns, Williams wants you to look again." -- Capitol Hill Times, July 13, 2005 "Messing with mother nature can get you in deep doo-doo." -- The Seattle Times, July 17, 2005 "Reading THE STREET SMART NATURALIST is like suddenly acquiring X-ray vision...Every page...brought me revelations..." -- David Laskin, Author of The Children's Blizzard and Braving the Elements "Williams' essays demonstrate...a keen eye is as useful as an unlimited travel budget in studying the world around you." -- Tom Palmer, The Ledger, Sept 8, 2005 Naturalist and Seattle native David Williams offers his original perspectives on the wonder and resilience of nature in and around the Northwest's greatest population center. Illustrated by hand-drawn maps, Williams's writings are interesting, intelligent, and challenging at a personal level. He approaches the notion that his beloved city, as hip and urbane as it is, remains a wild place on the Northwest landscape--in the quarried rock of the historical buildings, in the branches of a pocket-sized city park, in the twists and turns of a stream that has been abused by polluters, hedged in by lawns, and buried under expressways. And yet it is a living thing, worthy of rescue. Williams looks beyond the skyline, beyond the postcard views of the Emerald City, and into its wild heart. Raised in Seattle, David Williams is a general naturalist with a bachelor's degree in geology. As a park ranger and educator, he has taught natural history both in the field and in the classroom and has written widely on the topic for the last decade. He has written for Sunset, the Seattle Times, High Country News, National Parks, and Geotimes. Used Book in Good Condition