North American birders prepare for annual count

PROVIDENCE, N.Y. (AP) — Birders in the snowy Northeast expect to see fewer robins while those in the Southwest will be watching for migrating sandhill cranes as thousands of citizen-scientists across North America get out their tally sheets for the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count.

The National Audubon Society and Cornell Lab of Ornithology sponsor the count. They hope to have more than 100,000 backyard counters for the Feb. 18-21 effort this year, especially after public attention on threats to birds was heightened when thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve.