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PODCAST

Street Smart Naturalist

David B. Williams

A free newsletter oriented toward building stronger connections to place through stories of human and natural history in the Pacific Northwest streetsmartnaturalist.substack.com

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

6:44

Snow Flakes of Cotton

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/06/05

Tis that time of year when cotton starts to snow the landscape. I always enjoy this annual falling of little white clusters out of the sky, particularly since we see so little real snow falling in Seattle. Neither cotton nor snow, the white “flakes” come from our local cottonwood, the black cottonwood, Populus trichocarpa. The specific epithet provides a hint to the plant’s legendary, or notorious for some, feature, as trichocarpa means “hairy seed,” from the Greek thrix, a hair, and karpos,

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6:35

Too Hot! Goats to the Rescue

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/05/29

Yesterday the temperature peaked at 82 degrees in Seattle. That ain’t right. Our normal high for May 28 is 68 degrees. So, like any good Seattleite in such a dire situation, I panicked and sought out whatever cooling I could find: cold drinks, our basement, and stories of cold, such as people freezing to death and resorting to cannibalism on mid-19th century Arctic expeditions. Being the kind and kind of writer I am, I’ll spare you the details of the Arctic diet and instead relate another story of

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7:11

Twelve Ways of Seeing Blackbirds

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/05/22

Today, I’d like to highlight a local favorite of mine: the Red-winged Blackbird - Agelaius phoeniceus. * First Name: Red-winged would be a wonderful description, if it were correct. The problem, at least in regard to reality, is that red only applies to the bird’s shoulder patches. An older, first name used to be red-shouldered but apparently those who name birds eschewed the logic and decided to exaggerate the spread of red.* Surname: Blackbird is also apt, as the birds are all black. At least the

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5:34

Flying Fish

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/05/15

My story last week about the herring caught by the Osprey reminded me of another flying fish tale. This one is even nuttier, with longer lasting consequences.If you were standing on the shore of Lake Washington on September 15, 1938, you could have seen 2,000 flying trout. They came from a low flying plane, which dropped the fish fingerlings in a rectangular metal can attached to an old gunny sack fashioned into a parachute. The fish bombers experimented during several flights, varying the size of

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7:01

Top Wild Sights of Seattle

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/05/08

The other day at one of my talks for my new book, Wild in Seattle, someone asked me what was the wildest thing I had seen in the city. I thought it was a great question and, prompted by my big brother, I decided to come up with some of my favorite wild sightings in Seattle.Flying Fish - At Alki Point with a pal, we saw an adult herring passing over us in the talons of an Osprey, who disappeared to the north. Then the Osprey and herring returned back over the water, followed by a Bald Eagle. The

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6:58

Bird's Eye Seattle: 1884

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/05/01

On July 14, 1884, a short article appeared in the Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer. It noted that artist H. Wellge had just completed “the finest view of Seattle ever taken.” The image was of the bird’s-eye character, measured 14 inches wide and 33 inches long, and would cost $3 apiece, or 12 for 20 bucks. “It will be a splendid thing to send abroad to advertise the town.” Bird’s Eye View of the City of Seattle, WT would be one of more than 150 panoramic bird’s eye views that German-born Henry

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7:20

Slug Fest

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/04/24

This past weekend, Marjorie and I and friends went walking in a splendid, wooded area, Taylor Mountain. Like other forested spots near Seattle that have been protected by the city, county, state, or federal government, it is haven of beauty. Biggest were the holy trinity trees—Douglas firs, western red cedars, and western hemlocks—many so large I couldn’t wrap my arms around them. We debated if they were original growth and concluded they were not. Back in the day, no logger would have left behind

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7:37

Rejoicing in an Orwellian Spring

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/04/17

Alas, it’s back to me after last week’s lovely interlude by Marjorie.“The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London.”George Orwell - Some

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5:22

Ode to My Naturalist

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/04/10

Hello from Marjorie, the wife often referred to in David’s writing. In honor of David’s birthday week, I offered to write a newsletter and give readers some insight into the man behind the Street Smart Naturalist. Back to normal next week.Someone recently said to me, “Gosh, David must be fun to live with.” This was during a walk when he spotted a hawk perched on a rock cliff 75 feet above us. The rest of us barely saw the rock, much less the bird.Yes, living with a super-naturalist is fun. He

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4:13

"Wild in Seattle" is Published!

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/04/03

I am excited to announce that Wild in Seattle: Stories at the Crossroads of People and Nature is now on sale in bookstores. My first thanks goes to Mountaineers Books for all of their hard work in creating this beautiful book. My second goes to Elizabeth Person for her wonderful, whimsical watercolors. The book is worth buying simply for her illustrations.Wild in Seattle is an outgrowth of my first three years of the Street Smart Naturalist newsletter. It brings together 48 of my favorite essays

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7:07

Bird's Eye Seattle: 1878

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/03/27

In early January, I wrote about one my favorite images of Seattle, August Koch’s 1891 Bird’s Eye View. I’d now like to return to another similar map: Eli Sheldon Glover’s 1878 Bird’s-Eye View of the City of Seattle. An itinerant artist, Glover produced similar panoramas of Tacoma, Portland, Walla Walla, Olympia, and Port Townsend. Glover’s is the first of this style of illustration done for my hometown. Just 3,200 people lived in Seattle when Glover executed his drawing. The most curious feature of

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6:19

CSI: Critter Scene Investigation

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/03/20

We ventured down to Arizona last week to attend the amazing Tucson Book Festival: 130,000 attendees and 320 authors. It’s a book dork’s idea of heaven. While down in the desert, we saw two, curious natural history scenes, both worthy of closer investigation and consideration. Unfortunately, both also centered on dead animals my wife and I found on a morning walk on a road.The first was a tarantula. I assume the spider had ventured out in search of food, perhaps triggered by the rain that had fallen

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6:08

Paths of Least Resistance

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/03/13

Over the weekend, I went out for a quick walk around our neighborhood, which I have done thousands of times. So it was rather exciting to discover something new. In particular, I walked on a path I had never trod, much less seen. It wasn’t terribly long, perhaps 50 feet, or challenging or scenic. Located at the end of a Dead End road, the dirt path simply allowed me to cut easily through blackberries and down a short slope to the back end of a parking lot. Still I felt a frisson of excitement. Doing

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6:16

Freezing and Heaving

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/03/06

Recently on a walk at Dungeness Spit on the Olympic Peninsula, my wife and I saw a curious phenomenon. If you haven’t been out to this five-mile finger of sand and driftwood, you are missing out. It’s pretty darned amazing. That being written, we didn’t actually walk the spit. Unlike we usually did at the beach, we turned left, instead of right, and walked along the bluff that rises out of the water and runs toward Port Angeles. I have long liked this spot. The bluff is geology in motion. As waves

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6:50

Keepers of the Land

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/02/27

Many, many years ago, I was a national park ranger at Arches National Park and the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. As a ranger, I led tours, helped people understand what they were seeing, cleaned up trash, removed graffiti, and answered numerous questions. (The most popular was “Where’s the bathroom?” “Out the door and to the left,” was the answer.) I assisted on search and rescue, carried out visitors who needed first aid, and fought fires. I knew that I was privileged to be a ranger

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5:12

Seattle Walks

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/02/20

I hope you’ll put up with a bit of self-indulgence and promotion. I am excited to announce that the new, updated edition of Seattle Walks is now available in bookstores. Here’s the skinny on it.In the fall of 2023, Nicole Mitchell, the director of the University of Washington Press, contacted me about updating the original Seattle Walks. We had been talking about it on and off for several years—and going on walks together—so I knew I wanted to do it. Part of my impetus was that since the press

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5:58

Written on Snow

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/02/13

Few natural story tellers are better than snow. Or more ephemeral. I was lucky enough to read some of the stories told by snow in Seattle’s recent snowmageddon. For those not from my fair city, we got about 2 inches of the white stuff or enough to cause general panic and chaos. Steep hills, a lack of equipment to deal with snow, and over confident drivers are not a good recipe for safe travel. One year, the lack of preparation for snow even led to the political demise of our mayor.Taking advantage

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7:26

Waterfront Clam Garden

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/02/06

Last week I had the privilege of touring Seattle’s new waterfront park with my friend Owen Oliver. A writer and artist, he has been a key consultant to park designers highlighting Coast Salish priorities. We first met several years ago when he reached out to me about my book Homewaters. I was deeply honored when he wrote: “I appreciated everything you did to give justice to the landscape learned knowledge of the Indigenous people.” Since then, we have had many fine conversations; I always learn from

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6:24

How Not to Name a Mountain

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/01/30

Since election day, the president has issued a vast and horrible horde of executive orders. Most have been short-sighted and narrow-minded. Many have been racist, mean-spirited, and vindictive. Others have been perplexing and one or two can be classified as mainly the gestures of a megalomaniac. I would like to comment on one of the latter ones, in part because it has a Seattle connection. In 1886, William Andrews Dickey arrived in Seattle. It was the home of his wife’s parents, Dillis and Sarah

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7:32

How Not to Read a Map

Street Smart Naturalist ·

2025/01/23

I like to think I am pretty good at reading maps. I understand topo lines and can tell a valley from a ridge from a summit. I know to look for scale and that sometimes 39-foot cliffs don’t show up on a map with 40-foot contours. I also know that maps can lie and mislead and that people use them for political or other sinister purposes. That being written, I didn’t expect to question my navigational talents via a small map illustrating part of a Washington State Park. But I was.Over the weekend, my

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