Went to the seattle public library a couple weeks ago and got set up with a card, but realized I didn't have any plans for what books to get, but this one was recommended in their catalog, so grabbed it and am very glad I did. It's an account of all the different forms of natural life that can be found within cities, but the author is from Seattle, so nearly every example she focuses on winds up being specific to the area.
It would have been a really enjoyable and interesting read regardless, but the fact that it's so local-specific means I've now got a bunch of local adventures I want to check out including things like: the moss gardens on Bainbridge island / the site of a mysterious fern die-off in Seward park / a mass roost of (over 10,000) crows at UW Bothell / the wetlands at Magnuson park.
It also winds up covering quite a bite of the natural history of Seattle too, and how human activity has shaped the environment here. I didn't realize that the Lake Washington / Lake Union / Puget Sound connections didn't originally exist but were manmade instead (lowering the base water level of Lake Washington and destroying a bunch of wetlands in the process).
Highly highly recommend this to any Seattle friends interested in local naturey stuff, and it's still a great read if you're located elsewhere too. I've definitely focused on the local elements of it in this writeup cause that's what really captivated me with it, but it's also just got a bunch of cool stuff on ways to observe the local flora and fauna without having to trek out to the woods to "go to nature".