It's 3:30 a.m. and quiet here at Base Camp.
There's still hot coffee--terrific news, since the temperature's down to the high 30s (Fahrenheit) and I can see every breath. A solitary National Park Service ranger still plugs away at a laptop, entering the names of observed and identified organisms into the master species database. The NG Maps crew continues to pin photos and stories to their interactive map. The night sky brims with stars and passing satellites.
Quietly in the dark, the Santa Monica Mountains BioBlitz marks a milestone: 683 logged species, more than turned up during the entire 'Blitz last year in Rock Creek Park (where at noon on Saturday the tally stood at 666). Subsequent species identifications brought that number up, but will likely do the same for the total here.
Biodiversity lives out there in the darkness, even if the very plants seem sound asleep.
Photograph by Ford Cochran
POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 3:30 AM
