Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories in the outdoors.

Today's episode is about a mysterious collection of stuffed birds.

They were found at a high school in a small university

town out west, and their story takes us from the prairies of Wyoming back in the 1960s to a

fancy research facility today. It's a story about a long-forgotten treasure trove of specimens,

but more than that, it's a story about how science works.

If you've ever taken a science class, you've probably studied the scientific method, where you start out with a question, you form a hypothesis,

you conduct experiments, and then if everything goes as planned, you get answers to your questions.

But a lot of science isn't so straightforward.

The path to making a breakthrough is often circuitous, riddled with unexpected twists and turns.

When you start a project, you're embarking on a journey that could end up, well, anywhere.

Today's story takes us on one such journey.

It starts with a storage room full of stuffed birds

and shows us the surprising things that can come about

from a project that started on someone's kitchen table.

The story starts with a man named Brian Barber.

He's a biologist, and he's, well, let's just say he's always liked critters.

The very first snake I ever found was in a, like a beer can in the woods by a creek,

and I kind of got it out of the can put it in my hands and it bit me

and I was I don't know six or seven years old and rather than being terrified I was kind of

fascinated and I remember going to the elementary school library and checking out all the

books on reptiles so I could figure out what it was.

...