By Sarah Neil
Correspondent
The College’s birding team, TCNJays, won a county-wide birding competition last weekend, beating out competitors from Stockton University and a local high school.
On Oct. 4, a team of the College’s students faced off against other birders in the Wings Over Mercer birding competition. This event, held by the Wild Bird Research Group, was a day-long contest to see who could find the most species of birds in Mercer County. TCNJays and the team from Stockton University both found the most species in the student team category, 54, but the College’s team won in a tiebreaker, having submitted their entry first.
As winners, TCNJays received a $25 gift certificate to a window collision prevention company, a tote bag, a postcard, a field guide for hawks and a bookmark.
The timing of the competition takes advantage of the fall migration season, with many novel birds passing through the area on their way to their winter homes. As the weather gets colder, birds from Canada and the northern United States pass through New Jersey on their way to the warmer southern states, many of which cannot be seen in the area for most of the year.
The competition included multiple categories of teams, such as Student Team, New to Birding Team and Competitive Team.
Starting at Mercer Meadows just after sunrise, TCNJays then made their way to Rosedale Lake, Colonial Lake, Mercer County Park, and finally, Lake Carnegie Dam in Princeton.
The team recorded almost 500 individual birds, spending nearly 10 hours on the hunt.
Lyndsay Williams, a junior interactive multimedia major, knew it would be a challenge.
“I knew we were gonna be doing a lot of walking… it would be a lot of exhaustion for me,” she said.
They walked through grasslands, shorelines and forests, finding bald eagles, cormorants and sparrows along the way.
Left: Two Double-crested cormorants, Right: Bobolink. (Photos courtesy Theresa Musto)
Shira Weiss, a senior biology major, was proud of her ability to identify the birds, a skill she picked up in Luke Butler’s Avian Biology class during the Spring 2025 semester.
“It was so awesome to be on this journey with them,” she said about working with the birding team.
Weiss also noted the public’s interest in the TCNJays’ birdwatching. She said while the team was on the trails, they would let interested passersby look through their telescope. They also encountered other birding teams along the way, most of which ranged widely in age and experience.
“There’s such a good community in birdwatching, and I hate that it’s seen as an ‘old-person’ hobby... it’s really not, it’s so accessible to everyone, and I feel really good that they had the student teams because it encourages students to get into it,” said Theresa Musto, a junior biology major and member of the TCNJays. Other student teams came from local high schools.
Thanks to outreach by organizations like the Wild Bird Research Group and the popularization of apps like eBird and Merlin, birding is on the rise, especially among younger people. Between 2016 and 2022, the number of birders aged 16-24 more than doubled, according to surveys by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The team agreed that getting young people interested in birds is vital for protecting local ecosystems, as public awareness is one of the first steps in successful conservation.
“Birds are everywhere. They are always with us, whether you see them or you don’t,” said Williams.
