Another usual first day event for the new year — from CNN:

For the second year in a row, dozens of blackbirds died overnight Saturday in Beebe, Arkansas, apparently after being startled by New Year’s Eve fireworks, an official with the state’s Game and Fish Commission said Sunday.
…
A much larger bird kill was reported in Beebe last New Year’s Eve when about 5,000 birds were found dead in a square-mile area.
The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma after the otherwise healthy birds became disoriented and flew into stationary objects such as trees and buildings.

(Illustration found here).

In a similar vein, 2012 is the year of the end — reportedly.
Mayan might be”Tonight’s Word ” for the next 12 months, but reality is way-more troublesome than the cycle-“end” of a calendar a thousand years old.
Per the LA Times:

Meanwhile, scientists complain, the Earth faces a much more likely threat: climate change.
And there are, of course, other slow-moving disasters looming.
“There are real crises in the world,” said (sociologist John) Hall of UC Davis.
“There’s the environmental crisis.
There’s the threat of terrorism.
There’s the economic crisis.
There are political upheavals.
And in a way, this [2012 phenomenon] is a great distraction for people.
And how odd it is that real events that we might be able to do something about are having disastrous effects, and people focus their attention on an event that isn’t going to happen.”

And the carry-away from Durban, South Africa, the US of A and the Eurozone indicates action on those real events also ‘isn’t going to happen.’