Tiffany Yau is beating the bushes of the densely forested Rouge Park, looking for the arachnid equivalent of a four-leaf clover.

The diminutive Yau, 24, has a butterfly net in one hand and a tiny sample jar in one pocket and she’s among a surprising number of people in the park this weekend actually praying for a close encounter with nature, especially in its most creepy, crawly forms.

Top of her wish list is the rare sphodros Niger or black purse-web spider, which was discovered in the park for the first time last year during the first Ontario BioBlitz.

Just over a year later — with the BioBlitz now the world’s biggest effort at cataloguing and catching animal, insect and fungal species — Yau spent Saturday determined to repeat that rare feat.

“I’m not scared of anything really. This is fun,” says Yau, a University of Guelph student who’s part of a team that specializes in identifying spiders.

And she’s far from alone in her enthusiasm for wild things.

It’s safe to say that, by Sunday afternoon, almost no stone — or leaf — will have been left unturned in the Rouge Park area as some 430 registered participants worked around the clock to search for new or noteworthy species as part of the second annual Ontario BioBlitz.

Dozens of people Saturday donned hip waders, climbed trees, paddled canoes or trolled through about 58 square kilometres near the Toronto Zoo, keeping an eye peeled for the rare red-shouldered hawk, the timid Blanding’s turtle, the magnificent poke milkweed. Most were expected to return Sunday.

Or, like Toronto resident Lara Ninkovic, 8, they were just looking to get back to nature for a few sunny hours, net as many dragonflies as possible and contribute to a better understanding of the biodiversity right in our own backyards.

“Last year we found some remarkably rare species and more species than any BioBlitz has found since the term was coined back in 1996,” said Dave Ireland, managing director of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Centre for Biodiversity.

And that was with about half the number of “citizen scientists,” university students, professors and other experts who combed the park and collected data this year.

“Biodiversity as a word is misunderstood and it’s not part of the lexicon yet,” said Ireland. “It provides our fresh water, our fresh air, the nutrients in our soil — it’s life and it sustains humans.

“We’re doing these events because scientists need an outlet to meet and compare findings. But also, they are to show people what (biologists and scientists) do and inspire them to appreciate biodiversity at a visceral level so they can spread the word.”

The blitz also gives Park Canada “incredible knowledge of what lives in the Rouge Park area they need to manage.”

At night, when not in search of nocturnal creatures such as bats or moths, dozens of participants have the real fun, camping out, comparing notes and engaging in intellectual one-upmanship in the tent city set up for the event in the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre near the Toronto Zoo.

Last year’s pilot project was such a success, both in raising awareness, drawing out interested locals and adding to the database of knowledge around biodiversity, that the BioBlitz is now intended to be a 10-year project, notes Ireland.

The list of partners has now grown to include the ROM, the zoo, Parks Canada, Ontario Nature, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Environment Canada and a number of universities.

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Next year the blitz will move to the Humber watershed area near Kleinburg’s McMichael Gallery. In 2015, just before the Pan Am Games, it will be held in Toronto’s Evergreen Brickworks.

In 2017 it will be back to Rouge Park, for Canada’s 150th anniversary — and an update.

“These BioBlitzes produce a mass amount of data, but it means so much more if you come back in three or four years to see what has changed and hasn’t changed,” added Ireland.