Issue link: http://tcnj.uberflip.com/i/1543060
8 The College of New Jersey Magazine 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 '28, a computer science major who had also taken the class. Musto suggested it'd be something fun the cousins could do 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. 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. 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," says Weiss. "People came by, asked what we were doing, and then we let them look as well. Maybe we were inspiring others." DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT GREAT HORNED OWL AMERICAN ROBIN 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. "I've identified about 150 species of birds in the last five years," she says. She'd often rope her cousin Musto into joining her excursions. "I joked about it being like Pokémon at first," Musto says, referring to the trading card game that involves collecting exotic creatures. "Collect- ing birds is so much fun. Plus, birds are cute." To round out the bird-a-thon team, Butler also reached out to one of his advisees, Lyndsay Williams '27, 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.