{"id":13449,"date":"2026-01-28T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13449"},"modified":"2026-02-06T09:41:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:41:29","slug":"a-feather-in-their-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13449","title":{"rendered":"A feather in their cap"},"content":{"rendered":"

A flash of red in the branches, a swoop of brown amidst the leaves. Sometimes birding feels like a trick of the eye, until, suddenly \u2014 recognition. \u201cIt\u2019s pure dopamine,\u201d says Theresa Musto \u201927 of the thrill of identifying a bird she\u2019s never seen before. On a warm October day, Musto and four fellow students combed Central Jersey as part of the inaugural Wings Over Mercer Bird-A-Thon, a competition sponsored by the Wild Bird Research Group, a Pennington, New Jersey-based nonprofit that monitors bird populations in the state. The students traipsed across meadows and through swamps in search of their elusive winged quarry. Armed with binoculars and bird identification apps, they logged dozens of species, including rare waterfowl and a majestic bald eagle.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the students \u2014 some old hands and some fairly new to birding \u2014 it was a day of excitement and elation. But the experience was also something more. It was a chance to step outside the classroom and see the world around them in a new way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Biology professor Luke Butler first learned of the friendly competition through a colleague. Butler has studied birds for 20 years, examining how they respond to human impacts on the environment. For example, in a recent paper coauthored with TCNJ students, he revealed how Carolina chickadees display different molting patterns in areas with human activity. And it was through teaching an avian biology course that he first became interested in bird-watching himself. Over the years, he\u2019s had students conduct surveys of bird populations on campus as a way to introduce field sampling techniques and wildlife conservation. When Butler heard about the bird-a-thon, he thought it could be fun if TCNJ fielded a team. \u201cI knew some students who enjoyed birding as a personal pursuit,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I thought they might like the college spirit aspect of being on a team together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Musto, a biology major, was one of the first students he asked. She had taken a class of his the previous summer that explored birding from the perspective of biologists. Musto then quickly texted her cousin Elizabeth Italia \u201928, a computer science major who had also taken the class. Musto suggested it\u2019d be something fun the cousins could do together. In fact, they had already been dabbling in birding together. Italia had initially picked up the hobby as a way to pass the time during the COVID-19 pandemic, walking around the lake near her home and making lists of birds she saw. \u201cI\u2019ve identified about 150 species of birds in the last five years,\u201d she says. She\u2019d often rope her cousin Musto into joining her excursions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI joked about it being like Pok\u00e9mon at first,\u201d Musto says, referring to the trading card game that involves collecting exotic creatures. \u201cCollecting birds is so much fun. Plus, birds are cute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To round out the bird-a-thon team, Butler also reached out to one of his advisees, Lyndsay Williams \u201927, who had an interest in bird feathers, and to senior biology majors Shira Weiss and Nancy Dominguez, who had previously borrowed binoculars from him to go birding together and then they sent him a slide show about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team, which dubbed themselves the TCNJays, was up for the challenge: Identify as many bird species as possible in one day across a variety of habitats from wetlands to forest edges to open fields. The effort was meant to raise awareness for bird conservation and contribute data to help scientists better understand migration patterns.<\/span><\/p>\n

They set off at 7 a.m. on October 4, stopping first at Mercer Meadows in Lawrenceville and tagging more than 30 species, including bobolinks, which are migratory songbirds with a distinctive black-and-white pattern.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, they hit Rosedale Lake in Pennington, where they spotted the bald eagle, perched over the water on telephone wires. \u201cWe set up a scope,\u201d says Weiss. \u201cPeople came by, asked what we were doing, and then we let them look as well. Maybe we were inspiring others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Williams, the highlight was bushwhacking through the woods at the Delaware Canal State Park, where she spied a small shorebird called a lesser yellowlegs. \u201cI was always the one going off the path, looking around corners,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team logged all the birds that they saw in eBird, an online database of bird observations that helps to provide information about the ranges of species to avian biologists. They also used the app Merlin to recognize bird calls and tag birds they weren\u2019t able to see (permissible under the event rules), including a small, camouflage-savvy bird called a brown creeper. At the end of day, the team recorded 54 species (many seen on these pages), enough to win the student category of the competition. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked,\u201d says Williams. The TCNJays all plan to continue birding as a hobby, finding it a welcome respite from tests and homework. \u201cWith all our classes nowadays, we\u2019re so focused on our screens,\u201d says Italia. \u201cBirding is a stress reliever and opportunity to get outside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That even goes for Dominguez, who is mostly interested in microbiology. \u201cI don\u2019t typically get to connect with nature in the lab,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to experience a different side of biology.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Butler has seen similar transformations in students in his classes, as they awaken to the birds that have always been around them. They\u2019ll suddenly see a bird overhead \u2014 say, a common grackle \u2014 and point it out to friends and family. \u201cIt forever changes their relationship to their environment,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ll be in places they\u2019ve been their whole life, and then they\u2019ll go birding in that place and see it in a whole new way.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Illustration: Shutterstock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TCNJ students collect a W in an inaugural birding competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353,"featured_media":13477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13449"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13548,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13449\/revisions\/13548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}