I have long loved that the literal meaning of the word research is: to search again. I am reading A Parrot Without a Name by Don Stap, and have just gotten to a passage about Ted Parker's search for an Orange-throated Tanager, first discovered by John O'Neill, another giant of Peruvian ornithology. This particular attempt of Parker's was unfortunately fruitless (and harrowing to boot). But, as Stap writes about Parker's story, it's the search that matters:
"Telling this, Parker smiled at his own misfortune. The ill-fated search for O'Neill's Orange-throated Tanager had been an adventure he would never forget, and coming up empty-handed seemed almost incidental. One set off on such journeys because the search itself was important. Science, after all, is a search, a method, and not a set of rules. But few people anymore seem to have the mental and physical wherewithal to do what Parker did, what he and O'Neill continue to do year after year. The spirit of adventure and a disciplined scientific mind are seldom found in the same person."
Parker was an incredible ornithologist, and I believe he holds claim to being the only ornithologist ever to have discovered a new species in the wild by hearing its unusual song. It was possible for him to do that because he had unparalleled (superhuman) knowledge of the songs of 1,800+ avian species in Peru.
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