New Jersey
24 hours with 3 teenage birders: Welcome to the World Series of Birding
Otys Train, 16, (left) and teammate Jack Trojan, 17, search for different bird species while competing in the world series of birding at High Point State Park in New Jersey on May 9. They competed in the 43rd annual World Series of Birding where they counted as many bird species within New Jersey as they could in 24 hours.
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Mohamed Sadek for NPR
It’s just after midnight in north New Jersey when a white SUV pulls up next to a deserted park, and three teenage boys leap out into the dark. They sprint across a field, vault a fence and peer through binoculars — up toward giant nests atop a pole — all in the hopes of catching a momentary flash of a sleeping parrot’s tail.
By the light of street lamps, they strain to get a look through the nests’ dark holes. Then, after 10 minutes of waiting, 16-year-old Otys Train calls out: “I’ve I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got the monk parakeet!”
He and his friends, 17-year-old Jack Trojan and 16-year-old Zade Pacetti, have repeatedly come to this park late at night to try to find this bird. And tonight, the work has paid off. They’ve found their first bird of the 43rd annual World Series of Birding. The competition started at midnight on Saturday, and they have until the last seconds of the day to count as many bird species within New Jersey as they can — and claim victory.
A snowy egret flies by a nesting area in Ocean City.
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The teenagers are accompanied by their dads: Mark Trojan, Chris Pacetti and Jeff Train. They’re in charge of driving the van and ensuring that their sons remember to drink water and eat food, not just energy drinks and a family-sized bag of M&Ms.
To keep warm, the team sports matching gray sweatshirts, emblazoned with their team name: The Pete Dunnelins. It’s a portmanteau of dunlins, a shorebird often spotted along the New Jersey coast, and a local birding hero: Pete Dunne, who founded the World Series of Birding back in 1984. It’s put on by the nonprofit New Jersey Audubon, part competition for birding glory and part fundraiser for conservation.
It’s become an intergenerational gathering of bird lovers: This year, 87 teams are participating in several divisions sorted by age. They range from birders who have competed for decades, to first-graders who are just learning the ropes. Smack dab in the middle, in the high school division, are The Pete Dunnelins, who have been friends since 2021, around the time they really fell in love with birding.
Pete Dunne uses binoculars during the World Series of Birding in an estuary in Cape May in 2007. He founded the event in 1984.
Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images
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Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images
For them, it’s not just a casual hobby. They’ve placed first in the competition for the past two years — the result of years of practice, mentorship from older birders and training their eyes and ears to catch every bird, no matter how swift the appearance or faint the call. The three of them have been preparing for this year’s competition for months, even creating a spreadsheet with the day’s schedule planned “down to the minute,” Jack Trojan says.
It’s a strategy they hope will lead to another win — or, at the very least, help them reach their goal of 200 species. (Last year, they got 199, tying for first place with their fellow high school competitors and “nemeses,” the Flying Penguins from southeast Pennsylvania.)
“Every minute we’re driving, we’ve accounted for,” Trojan, the team captain, says. But they can’t account for the whims of nature. “Birds are animals, and you can’t really predict too well when you’re going to see or hear everything.”
The clock is ticking, and they have to move on to other locations, Trojan says: “It’s owl time.”
3 a.m. in marshland
After a few hours of looking for owls, bitterns and rails, the team has moved onto a marshland trail on the edge of the state. It’s still pitch-black, and they’re listening to the tell-tale sounds of the marsh birds they want to add to their list — in particular, the elusive sora, which hides in the reeds.
This is when their years of training their ears pays off, says Jeff Train, Otys’ dad and the team’s mentor. The teens can’t see the birds, but they can pick out their calls.
Trojan (right), makes bird calls at High Point State Park in northern New Jersey.
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It’s something Otys Train excels at. He went through a list of all the birds that were possible to hear at the World Series. “I memorized them to the point where I would get [them] like, immediately,” he says. “When you go into the field and hear the actual birds and see them, it kind of imprints the song in your head.”
Train, Trojan and Pacetti whisper to each other as they listen to the marsh starting to come alive as the minutes tick by. There’s the whinny of a sora, then the cheep of a swamp sparrow and the nasally “peent” of an American woodcock. “Am I hearing a green heron to the left?” Otys asks. They confer and either agree or disagree on what they hear; competition rules require unanimous team agreement before they can list it.
Jeff Train watches them from a short distance away. He’s careful to stay quiet, keeping his voice to a whisper and walking slowly in the grass; the teenagers are quick to shush anyone making unnecessary noise. The dads have learned this the hard way. “We always used to have a lot of laughing fits,” Train says – but no longer.
Further away on the trail is Chris Pacetti. How’s he holding up? “I’m cold,” he says. “I’m ready for the sun to come up.”
Sunrise in the woods
Zade Pacetti, 16, looks through binoculars.
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When the sun comes up a little before 6 a.m., Mark Trojan is driving the crew down a long, winding road in nearby High Point State Park — and The Pete Dunnelins are stressed. They’re running behind schedule, and they need to get back on track.
During this stretch, they’re trying to count as many warblers as possible. For maximum efficiency, they’re staying in the car as it cruises slowly down the road, windows rolled down.
The teenagers stick their heads outside the car to get a better look. “There’s a lot of yellow warblers, there’s a lot of thrushes,” Zade Pacetti murmurs, looking through his binoculars.
Then, all of a sudden, Otys Train sees something and cries out: “Mark! No! Stop!” The senior Trojan groans quietly, and brings the car to a halt.
The teammates begin to “pish” — blowing air through their clenched teeth and lips to make “a pish-pish-pish” sound, trying to draw out the birds from hiding. But not much happens, and after a minute, they continue driving. “We can’t spend too much time on this,” Jack Trojan says.
But not long after, their luck changes: there’s a sharp-shinned hawk’s nest up in a tree. “Sharpie nest is good,” Trojan says. Train agrees: “Ho-ly.”
The teammates sit on the ledges of their SUV’s rolled-down windows while looking for birds at High Point State Park.
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As the car continues to move along, Pacetti, Train and Trojan all sit on the ledges of their rolled-down windows, torsos sticking out of the car, arms on the top of the car to balance. It’s a move that they saw one of the top college student teams do during the competition a few years ago, Jeff Train says. And when he saw Otys sit on the ledge for the first time, he “freaked.”
But now that their sons are older, Train says, the dads have agreed that the move helps them hear better and compete. “They are really in their element, and they’ve learned so much, and they’re safe about it,” he says. “We don’t want to hold them back in any way.” After all, he says, birding is where he’s seen his son and his friends really thrive.
It’s not always been something their peers have understood; Jack Trojan says birding is “not seen as cool, actually.” But, Zade Pacetti says, “if you come across as confident … [classmates] respect that. And it’s not something to be made fun of.”
Otys Train used to “get made fun of a good amount for it,” he says. “But I kind of just learned to be myself and now I’m more open about it. And I guess people see it as interesting now.”
Early afternoon, on the side of the road
Train (left), Pacetti and Trojan look through a scope and binoculars at Malibu Beach Wildlife Management Area.
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Mohamed Sadek for NPR
Near the coastline of the south Jersey Shore, the team pulls off to the road shoulder, scoping out, among other birds, the piping plover. The fluffy, dull-feathered shorebird camouflages into the sand, hard to pick out among the dunes on an overcast day, Trojan says. They’re peering through the scope, but no dice.
With the day more than half over, they’ve started to use a timer to make sure they don’t linger. Trojan starts the countdown: in 1 minute and 40 seconds, they have to leave, no matter what.
At the 11th hour, Train calls over Pacetti and Trojan — he’s scoped a small, pale dot among other distant birds. His teammates peer through the lens, confirm his sighting, then bolt for the car.
Shorebirds forage along the marsh at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in southern New Jersey.
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Later, Jeff Train marvels at the teens’ planning acumen. “It’s funny, because I have to remind my son to pack his bag before he goes to baseball. But the spreadsheet he has created, telling him where a bird is and when he’s going to see it and what time he has to get there, it’s pretty funny to see that he definitely has those skills.”
Sunset at the wildlife refuge
The sun is starting to go down when The Pete Dunnelins step out of the car at the coastal Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge, a migration hotspot. The team has dozens of species that they need to find in the next two hours: It’s time to do or die.
As the trio walks around the refuge, they dial into the cacophony of wildlife surrounding them. Meanwhile, their fathers hang back, observing, cracking wise about their teens’ antics. Over the years, the six of them have become like family, Jeff Train says; the three sons interact more like brothers than they do teammates. (That brotherliness is particularly apparent that evening: When Zade Pacetti gets the hiccups during a chorus of birdsong, his teammates hiss at him to “shut up.”)
The teammates have grown as birders and as people over the years, Train says, thanks to a village of mentors and teachers. They’ve attended birding camp, been coached by college students, and gotten tips from experts at Cornell’s famed lab of ornithology. And along the way, they became obsessed with not just birds, but nature and conservation, Train says.
Train and Pacetti jog over to Trojan, who has spotted a bird. All teammates all have to see the bird to count towards their total.
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“Teenagers get a bad rap sometimes that they don’t care about much,” he says. “And this is clearly an illustration that, you know, the younger generation is not apathetic. They actually care a lot and they’re actually doing a lot of really good things.”
The sun starts to sink below the horizon, and the sky fills with birds gobbling up their last insects of the day. Craning their necks, the three boys try to not miss anything; they’ve got a number of species they need to spot if they have any chance of cracking 200.
“Nighthawk, right up there,” Jack Trojan blurts out, “going right, coming towards us.” His teammates murmur in agreement.
Trojan looks for birds out of the car window as the sun sets.
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Trojan picks up another sound — a yellow-breasted chat that has been eluding them. “It’s calling right now! That!”
Then, it chirps loudly, unmistakable. “Yes!” they yell in unison.
“And you say I’m not a good birder,” Trojan says, jostling his friends as they laugh. “I’m picking up so much more. I proved myself.”
The next morning in Cape May
The team stayed out until the very last minute, nabbing a king rail as their last bird of the day. The next morning, at the awards ceremony, the total counts are announced.
The Pete Dunnelins’ final count: 206 species, easily surpassing their goal.
But it wasn’t enough. The Flying Penguins — made up of team members Christian Scheibe, Noah Bieljeski, Ethan Kang and Ellie McDonald — got 209. In the end, three birds made the difference.
Trojan (left), Pacetti and Train look for a nighthawk at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge after the sun set.
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The trio say they found out about their loss not long after midnight. “We were pretty pissed last night,” Pacetti says. Then, they woke up the next morning in a better mood. There were things Pacetti says they could’ve done better — running behind schedule at times didn’t help. But other factors were beyond their control: Rainy conditions quieted some of the birds, and peak migration hadn’t quite hit the area yet.
Many teams of skilled young birders compete at a high level, so chance is a big part of the day, according to Tom Reed, the migration count coordinator at the Cape May Bird Observatory and a mentor of The Pete Dunnelins.
A mixture of great egrets, snowy egrets and white ibis nesting near the welcome center in Ocean City.
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“These birds have wings, they have their own lives they’re going about each day. You try to be in the best place at the best time or the best tide level to try to see each bird. But part of it is luck,” Reed says. “And then, there’s some years when you don’t get those lucky breaks.”
When The Pete Dunnelins go up to congratulate the Flying Penguins on their win, they swap notes on routes – though each is careful to not reveal the locations of their most prized birding spots. Sure, there’s no cash prize at stake in this competition, but they’re still rivals.
The team is already thinking about next year. They’re considering strategy, but there’s a bigger problem at hand: Trojan is heading to college in the fall, meaning he’ll age out of the high school division. Pacetti and Train will need to find a new teammate.
Trojan (left), Train and Pacetti counted 206 bird species but their rivals, The Flying Penguins, got 209.
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Trojan has a possible solution: “I was thinking that since I’ll be over 18, at that point, I can be a mentor” to his friends, he says. “So, it’d be like I’m still participating, but I’m just verifying their words and verifying their methods and strategies.”
Pacetti and Train, on the other hand? A little less sure about that plan. “I don’t know if that would be … I don’t know about that one,” Pacetti says, laughing.
After all, they’re still teenagers. Who wants their best friend to tell them what to do?
Eastern Kentucky has a long history of being taken advantage by outsiders who came to the state and cut the old-growth trees and tore up the land extracting coal from the ground.
EPA Deputy unveils coal rollback at Louisville’s Mill Creek power plant
EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi announced the agency will roll back limits on mercury, particulate matter and other toxic emissions from coal‑fired power plants.
Something seemed amiss when a friend in Washington, D.C. sent me an email about a candidate in New Jersey who seemed to be taking an oversized interest in what happens in Eastern Kentucky.
Gregg Mele, a perennial candidate who somehow became the Republican nominee in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in this year’s election, seemed from his campaign website to be auditioning to replace 88-year-old Hal Rogers of Kentucky and not 81-year-old Bonnie Watson Coleman of the Garden State.
Mele was pledging on his campaign website to “reopen and open new coal mines in Kentucky’s 5th District” and to “Access untapped oil in Southeastern Kentucky.”
It seemed oddly specific.
Why Kentucky’s 5th District and not West Virginia’s 1st or Pennsylvania’s 14th?
It’s even odder when you look at the campaign websites of Rogers, who has represented Kentucky’s 5th District since 1981, and Democrat Ned Pillersdorf, who is running to replace him, and neither say anything about bringing coal back.
The last mention of coal on Rogers’ website is a 2013 press release where he talks about diversifying the region’s economy beyond coal.
KY coal issues at top of website
Not only did Mele include these two items in the section of his website listing his platform, they were the top two issues.
To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this.
Eastern Kentucky has a long history of being taken advantage of by outsiders who came to the state and cut the old-growth trees and tore up the land while extracting coal from the ground.
They took our natural resources worth billions of dollars and left behind only poverty and scarred mountains.
Was Mele seeking to restart this type of neocolonialism, or was he actually trying to help by somehow providing jobs in an industry that is increasingly becoming automated?
Could hackers be responsible?
So, I asked him.
“I’m sorry, this seems to be an error or a hack. I am getting my team on this to have it corrected,” he said in an email.
That was on Wednesday. It was still on the website on Thursday.
I’m betting on an error.
It doesn’t seem much like something a hacker would add to a website.
Either way, it’s probably not a big deal as Mele’s chances of winning in the Democratic district are practically non-existent. Polymarket gives him just an 8% chance of winning, and I can’t find a single organization that rates House races that believes the district is in play.
No matter how many House members from Kentucky or West Virginia or Pennsylvania or even New Jersey want to jump start the coal industry in Kentucky, it’s unlikely to happen. Especially in Eastern Kentucky where the large coal seams have been depleted by more than a century of mining.
Coal industry peaked in KY
The rise of fracking, which has made natural gas cheap and easily attainable, may have been the death knell.
The coal industry peaked in Kentucky after World War II, when nearly 80,000 Kentuckians worked in the coal industry, and it has been falling ever since — particularly over the last 40 years.
In 1990, more than 28,000 people were employed in Kentucky’s coal industry, according to the Kentucky Center for Statistics. By 2023, the number had dropped to 3,939, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimates the number of coal mining jobs in Kentucky fell to 2,900 last year.
And Mele, despite what his website says, ain’t going to stop that trend.
Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com. You can also follow him at @jgerth.bsky.social.
The nonprofit Jersey Pride has produced New Jersey’s annual LGBTQ Pride event in Asbury Park on the first Sunday in June since 1992. Attendance usually surpasses 20,000 over the weekend.
Happy Pride 🏳️🌈 See NJ’s 34th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Celebration
Watch video of New Jersey’s 34th annual Statewide LGBTQ+ Pride Celebration in Asbury Park, on Sunday, June 7, 2026. 🏳️🌈
ASBURY PARK- The 34th Annual Statewide LGBTQ+ Pride Celebration in Asbury Park will take place from Friday, June 5 through Sunday, June 7, and the main festivities will culminate on Sunday with the grand parade and the outdoor beachside festival.
Jersey Pride Inc., the nonprofit organization that produces the Garden State’s annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Celebration in Asbury Park the first Sunday in each June, launched its annual parade and festival in 1992, and has remained a constant for New Jersey’s LGBTQ+ residents and their allies.
It is the largest, and oldest, LGBTQ Pride Celebration in the garden state, with attendance under normal circumstances surpassing 20,000 over the weekend.
Tickets to the family (and pet) friendly event cost $10 and will feature New Jersey’s largest outdoor display of the Names Project’s AIDS Memorial Quilt, rides in our Family Zone, and an array of eating options at the food court.
The Festival
The Pride Festival will see community groups and businesses distribute a wide variety of information, including job opportunities, housing options, family issues, disease prevention and screening, sources of support for victims of violence and abuse, legal rights and services, and the availability of support for issues that the queer community faces, according to Jersey Pride.
The Rally
Local artists will share the rally stage for a six hour outdoor concert against a backdrop of the Asbury Park Boardwalk and Atlantic Ocean. Adore Delano, Bryan Ruby, Dayo Dane, Danny Blu, Jasper, How I Became Invisible and Sister Funk are some of the artists headlining the rally.
The Parade
The parade will start at noon on June 7 at Asbury Park City Hall and head south on Main Street, then left on Cookman Ave toward the ocean, then left on Grand Ave. The parade will continue north on Grand to Sunset Ave, where it turns right and ends at the Rally / Festival Grounds.
Charles Daye is the metro reporter for Asbury Park and Neptune, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. @CharlesDayeAPP Contact him: CDaye@gannettnj.com
New Jersey’s most welcoming towns pair walkable main streets with year-round arts calendars and centuries of preserved history. Some carry deep Revolutionary War legacies. Others grew up around an art museum or a resident orchestra. Free jazz fills Nishuane Park. The Mayo Performing Arts Center hosts touring Broadway shows. Expect Victorian beach streets, summer Shakespeare, and old battlefields. All places where strangers get treated like neighbors.
Cape May
Cape May built its hospitality on its bed-and-breakfast district. Longtime innkeepers remember returning guests by name. The city holds one of the largest collections of 19th-century frame buildings in the country. That Victorian architecture earned it National Historic Landmark status in 1976. Cape May stands at the southern tip of the state’s coast, where Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Beach access stretches past Cove Beach and Poverty Beach to the central stretch near Beach Avenue. The Washington Street Mall handles shopping and dining inland. The 1859 Cape May Lighthouse still operates at the southern point. Visitors can climb its 199 steps for a view of the bay and ocean below.
Princeton
Princeton turned its university art museum into a public town square. The free museum opened a new building in October 2025 and holds more than 117,000 works. Princeton University began as the College of New Jersey in 1746, among the oldest in the country. Its collegiate Gothic campus stays open for self-guided architectural tours.
Bookstores and cafés line Nassau Street and Witherspoon Street downtown. Princeton Battlefield State Park preserves the ground where George Washington beat British troops in January 1777. The Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park follows the old canal corridor nearby. Level paths there suit walking and biking.
Morristown
Morristown holds the country’s first national historical park. Established in 1933, it preserves the site where the Continental Army camped through the brutal winter of 1779-1780. The town carries one of the deepest Revolutionary War legacies anywhere. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named it a Dozen Distinctive Destination. The Ford Mansion served as George Washington’s headquarters and stays open for tours. Acorn Hall, Historic Speedwell, and the MacCulloch Hall Historical Museum round out the historic-house circuit.
The Mayo Performing Arts Center on South Street books classical music, touring concerts, and Broadway shows year-round. The Morristown Green gathers the downtown restaurant and shopping scene around one public square.
Madison
Madison hosts the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at Drew University. It is the state’s only professional company devoted to Shakespeare and the classics. Performances fill the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre through a long summer season. The town stands about five miles east of Morristown.
Independent cafés, bakeries, and boutiques fill Main Street and Waverly Place. The Museum of Early Trades and Crafts occupies the 1900 James Library building. Its displays show the tools New Jersey artisans used in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Montclair
The free Montclair Jazz Festival fills Nishuane Park each year. Emerging and established players make it one of the larger jazz gatherings in the region. The town rests on the eastern slope of the Watchung Mountains. It keeps one of New Jersey’s busiest arts calendars. The Montclair Art Museum on South Mountain Avenue centers its collection on American and Native American art.
The Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University books dance, music, and theater all year. Restaurants and shops line Bloomfield Avenue in the Montclair Center district. The restored 1922 Wellmont Theater hosts touring concerts and comedy.
Westfield
The New Jersey Festival Orchestra calls Westfield home and plays venues around town all year. Shops, boutiques, and restaurants fill the Union County downtown along East Broad Street and Elm Street. The 1922 Rialto on East Broad Street was long the town’s movie house. It is being reborn as the Center for Creativity, a community arts venue for film, performance, and exhibitions.
Mindowaskin Park holds a pond, walking paths, and picnic spaces near downtown. The Spring Fling and FestiFall events bring music, food, and family activities to the blocks each year.
East Brunswick
Giamarese Farm and Orchards keeps a pick-your-own operation in East Brunswick. It offers seasonal fruit and vegetable picking, a corn maze, and autumn hayrides. The Middlesex County town leans toward families. Butterfly Park sets aside green space for butterfly conservation. Crystal Springs Family Waterpark gives a summer cooling-off spot.
Playhouse 22 stages community theater, plays, and concerts year-round. The East Brunswick Public Library hosts programs and exhibits as a cultural hub. Bicentennial Park and the Tamarack Golf Course cover the sports side. Route 18 puts New Brunswick and the central Jersey corridor within easy reach.
Hospitality You Can Walk To
Hospitality here shows up in small, repeatable ways. The Morristown Green fills with the same faces every weekend. Princeton opens its new art museum to everyone for free. The New Jersey Festival Orchestra tunes up in Westfield. Giamarese Farm hands East Brunswick families a basket every fall. None of it is staged for outsiders. These towns built their welcome for the people who live there. The rest of New Jersey keeps showing up anyway.
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