The BioBlitz encompassed 18 acres in and around Mission Canyon in the Botanic Garden. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

From Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, 23 scientists combed an 18-acre swath in Mission Canyon, checking animal traps, turning over rocks, scooping up creek water and literally beating the bushes, looking for bugs, spiders, lichens, plants, birds, mice, snails, ticks and flies.

The scientists set up equipment to capture the late-night calls of bats, sounds that cannot be heard by humans. Also at night, they hung up a sheet in front of a light to attract moths. They used a tape recorder to elicit the response of a screech owl.

During the day, the researchers sucked on siphons to draw bugs out of logs and off leaves. They identified a raccoon’s tracks, a mole’s burrow and the scat of a gray fox.

Diana Kennett, a specialist in diatoms, adjusts a slide of algae under a microscope. Kennett identified 39 different species of diatoms, one of the most important oxygen-producing organisms on Earth, in the water of Mission Creek. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

In all, he said, it was an impressive showing for a relatively small area.

“What we have here is a snapshot of the diversity of life in this canyon at this time of year,” Muller told a crowd of garden visitors late Saturday afternoon. “It’s quite remarkable. It shows that biological diversity occurs all around us, not just in tropical rainforests and coral reefs.”

The BioBlitz is a quick, intensive count, meant to catalogue as many species as possible in a short time and a defined area. A number of such surveys have been conducted in the United States since the mid-1990s, but never here.

Year-round, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is home to well over 1,000 species. Many migratory birds and bats do not frequent the garden this time of year, and snakes and salamanders don’t generally show up for command performances. It’s the worst time of the year for mushrooms, too. But the inventory from the BioBlitz will serve as a baseline to compare with future surveys taken every five or 10 years, Muller said.

A big-eared wood rat submits to being measured before it is released during the ecological survey this weekend at the garden. The wood rats assemble big, messy dome-shaped nests out of twigs that they cut from tree branches. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

During several hours on Saturday, Collins and his crew checked 90 box-like traps and painstakingly recorded the gender, body length, ear length, weight and stage of life of  dozens of California mice, a couple of big-eared wood rats and one black rat. Some of the mice were pregnant, and one gave birth when Collins opened the trap. All of the animals were released after inspection to leap into the brush.

“It’s like a treasure hunt,” Collins said. “I’m not usually interested in getting the highest number of things. I’m more interested in the community where they live.”

— Melinda Burns can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it