I would have thought that, after studying birds which move and bite and fly away before they're identified, that studying and measuring plants would be relaxing...
After being stung, scratched, confused, and poked in the eye many times over the past two days, I'm so ready to go back to birds. So many plants look alike to me. I'm finding that some species ID comes by feel (that stings, it's stinging Nettle; that scratches, it's blackberry; that caused my skin to burst into itchy vesicles, it must be poison oak!) and also by smell (Bay, Mugwort, Sage).
I'm also frustrated by Willows. At times they are tall and skinny and clumped into a huge tangle, so I call it a shrub. Other times, they are single, thick and tall so that it seems more like a tree. And often, a Willow or conglomeration of Willows are somewhere in the nebulous gray area between shrub and tree. So, I stand there, staring into Quadrant I, with my data sheet in front of me, trying to decide between these two categories. I'll take a couple steps in towards the plant in question. I'll take a couple steps back to get a better look. Maybe I'll take DBH. Mostly, I stand and stare and then either come to a decision that will be challenged at the next Willow, or I skip the decision to wait for further instruction from my supervisors.
It seems to me difficult to shove these diverse, multi-layered, variously sized, endlessly different tangles of vegetation onto a two sided data sheet.