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What the morning of our second day brought was rain. Overnight, make that a LOT of rain. Whoever said “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” was lying: last night it fell mainly on Doñana.

Even as we were getting ready for the field, the heavens opened, so I suspect we were all a little dubious about spending the whole day working outside.

The day didn’t get much better when we arrived at the area I use for my vegetation field work. We start off in umbrella pine forest but what we found was rather a lot of the pine chopped down. Fortunately, we’d heard yesterday about how the local habitats in Doñana are managed for key species like Iberian Lynx. That includes felling pines to encourage the undergrowth, so what we saw made sense.

Using our senses

We start with getting our heads around the local flora. Well, in this case, it’s our eyes and noses and hands and, once or twice, our tongues. It has always surprised me that many people equate plant identification with Victorian ladies pouring over pressed-flowers while referring to some massive botanical textbook. Of course, there’s some serious science behind plant classification, but that’s absolutely not what our field work is about. In the field, you use all five senses, especially in an area like Doñana.

What’s that shrub with the pale blue flowers and needle-shaped leaves? Easy: smell it! If you’ve ever had a meal flavoured with rosemary, then you’ll know. If it smells like rosemary, it is rosemary. The lavender: that’s easy too (plus nice flowers) and thyme.

That little silvery leaved bush over there? What did today’s group think that smelled like? Not quite so easy this time and, with seven or eight students, there is always a range of opinions. “Christmas” was one thought. “Curry maybe” was another. Well, the textbooks will tell you it’s “curry plant”, and I certainly get a hint of that, but each to their own. If “Christmas plant” helps you remember it next time, and link it to a “proper name”, then that’s perfectly good field biology in my book.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think we don’t do “proper” plant science though. But that’s not so complex either. That bush that looks like it is covered with miniature pea pods? Well, it might just be related to peas and beans, and once you got that, and the shape of the flower that goes with the pods, then you begin to be able to identify one of the biggest plant families in the world.

Sunshine and Science

To be honest, yes, we all got pretty wet this morning, but I don’t think anyone really worried too much, so the group passed that particular test for becoming field ecologists. The sun came out for lunchtime, sitting on the dunes in the shelter of all those plants we could identify now.

We spent the afternoon doing some proper field ecology research. That’s not about what you know. It is about the group generating ideas from observing the world and doing the work to test it.

In this case, what about the juniper trees that grow in the umbrella pine forest? How would you expect the pine and juniper trees to interact? “They would compete with each other”, was the suggestion. Fine, that made sense to me, and then they went off to test whether they were right.

Should I tell you whether they were right or not? I could, but that would spoil it for you if you ever come to Doñana with us. Suffice to say that by the end of the afternoon we all had a better understanding that the ecology of Doñana can be pretty different from what we are used to in the UK. And that all the lovely sunshine might not always be quite so lovely after all.

Tomorrow’s blog - Rare birds and dung beetles

Read all Nigel’s blogs about the rest of the trip. Learn more about studying Ecology and Conservation, or other biology and environmental degrees at the Lancaster Environment Centre, and about the fieldwork on offer to students.