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 — recognition.
“It’s pure dopamine,” said Theresa Musto ’27 of the thrill of identifying a bird she’s 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, who called themselves the TCNJays, came together through biology professor Luke Butler. Musto, who had taken Butler’s avian biology class, recruited her cousin Elizabeth Italia ’28, a longtime birding hobbyist. Butler also encouraged his advisee Lyndsey Williams ’27 and senior biology majors Shira Weiss and Nancy Dominguez, both of whom had previously borrowed binoculars from him for personal birding projects. With a mix of experience and curiosity, the TCNJays combined their skills to explore Central Jersey’s habitats and log species for the competition.
Armed with binoculars and bird identification apps, they logged dozens of species, including rare waterfowl and a majestic bald eagle. The team was up for the challenge: identify as many bird species as possible in one day across wetlands, forest edges, and open fields, while raising awareness for bird conservation and contributing data for scientists tracking migration patterns.
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, migratory songbirds with a distinctive black-and-white pattern. Next, they hit Rosedale Lake in Pennington, where they spotted the bald eagle perched over the water on telephone wires.
“We set up a scope,” said Weiss. “People came by, asked what we were doing, and then we let them look as well. Maybe we were inspiring others.”
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. “I was always the one going off the path, looking around corners,” she said.
The team logged all the birds that they saw in eBird, an online database of bird observations that helps provide information about species’ ranges. They also used the app Merlin to recognize bird calls and tag birds they weren’t able to see, including the well-camouflaged brown creeper. At the end of the day, the TCNJays recorded 54 species, enough to win the student category of the competition.
The TCNJays all plan to continue birding as a hobby at the college, finding it a welcome respite from tests and homework.
“With all our classes nowadays, we’re so focused on our screens,” said Italia. “Birding is a stress reliever and opportunity to get outside.”
That even goes for newcomer Dominguez, who is mostly interested in microbiology.
“I don’t typically get to connect with nature in the lab,” she said. “It’s nice to experience a different side of biology.”
Butler has seen similar transformations in students in his classes, as they awaken to the birds that have always been around them. They’ll suddenly see a bird overhead, say, a common grackle, and point it out to friends and family.
“It forever changes their relationship to their environment,” he said. “They’ll be in places they’ve been their whole life, and then they’ll go birding in that place and see it in a whole new way.”
— Michael Blanding