A black shape leaps, plummets twelve storeys, ripples down windows, spirals and wavers, pulls up short, ies back to the top of the building and leaps again. No one notices. No one sees the body-head bop before the dive, no one hears the guttural call among Vancouver's urban corridors-how the sound scrapes through the tra c and construction on Davie Street. No one sees the murder of Northwest crows that appears and chases the bird down Hornby Street, headed toward the answering call of another

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... ven. Their ears plugged into, eyes and thumbs locked onto smartphones, iPods, and mp players, pedestrians pass me by, shoulder check me; their bags knock my hips. No one notices. When people think of cities, they commonly think of concrete, theatres, high-rises, sidewalks, nightclubs, shopping malls, vacant-eyed and fastpaced pedestrians, cars and buses clogging narrow streets. In such built habitats, Neil Evernden's claim resonates: "genuine attachment to place for humans [is] very di cult" ("Beyond" ). If we continue framing his proposal in relation to cities, his point o ers a useful way of thinking about our relationship with the nonhuman world. He claims that humans are "nicheless" species; their way of living excludes them from participating in an ecosystem's natural processes. What he means by nicheless is that, as a species, we have fallen out of our ecological and evolutionary contexts. Instead, with the aid of technologies, we shape these contexts to meet our needs. We are "capable of material existence, " but we lack the capacity to commit to "an organic community" (The Natural ) as co-extensive and L i s a S z a b o -J o n e s Adventures in Habitat An Urban Tale 1 Follow the project far enough to surprise yourself. Then go back to it. Be patient and relentless. Dream. Surprise yourself again. -Laurie Ricou, "Out of the Field Guide: Teaching Habitat Studies" CanLit_218_3rdProof.