Old School triangulation
It seems funny to me that the tool I'm finding most useful for mapping trees is my old compass in concert with Satellite photos. Of course reading and feeling topography is important too, perhaps more than I realize because sensing topography has become so innate.
But, GPS is not adequate for mapping individual plants in dense groups. Finding physical features on the landscape that can be identified in satellite maps is the only solid way to anchor discovered plants to a map. However, when finding plants in dense forest/vegetation those physical feature are out of site. I draw diagrams showing relative positions of trees, then with my compass I can shoot bearings and work some triangulation from known-location-trees. The new tool I've added is making scatter plots of tree coordinates. This gives me a stripped down diagram of trees plotted relative to a coordinate grid.
geez, bet that does not make sense to anyone. Oh well, that's what you get from wandering around and talking to junipers all day.
Gotta love it.
