It's PROBABLY not the end of the world. Probably.
I'm actually glad that this has happened for a second time on January 1st. Because if it was happening for the first time on January 1st 2012, you know that everyone would be panicking in the streets. I mean, I'm sorry for the dead birds, obviously. But the fact that a flock of blackbirds has fallen from the sky over Beebe, Arkansas two years in a row on New Year's Eve hints at a very normal (i.e. not paranormal) explanation.
That, or Beebe is where the baby Jesus is being born, in order to return to the Earth and begin the End Times with the war against Satan and the faithful Christians being sucked up to Heaven and everything.
It's one of those two things, I'm pretty sure.
One presumes that there isn't much going on in Beebe most nights of the year. According to the leading theory, the fireworks and general revelry of New Year's Eve has the unfortunate side effect of rousting Beebe's population of blackbirds from their nighttime roosts. The birds, frightened and presumably unable to see very well in the darkness, meet untimely deaths when they collide with each other, windows, walls, and so forth.
Birds are also able to literally die of fright. Sadly it doesn't take much to kill a bird from fright. Their small systems are easily overwhelmed by a shock and stress, and Arkansas folks firing off a lot of fireworks could definitely fit that bill.
During the 2011 aftermath, many people speculated that the birds might have been a flock migrating through. An early migration, to be sure, since the real migratory action doesn't usually get going until February and March. The theory was that migrating flocks were being destroyed by airborne fireworks.
More information this year shows that this does not seem to be the likely culprit. A local news station captured a Doppler radar image which "showed a large mass over Beebe a few hours before midnight." This makes it sound like either the world's largest coincidence, or that these were non-migrating "homebody" birds that were being flushed from their roosts.
Presumably the same sort of thing might happen on July 4th. However, most Independence Day fireworks displays take place right after dark. As opposed to New Year's Eve, when darkness falls many hours before the fireworks start. This means that birds have had a chance to fall sound asleep on New Year's Eve, whereas they are probably a little more alert when the fireworks start on the 4th.
Maybe next year Beebe will take pity on the poor blackbirds, and ban fireworks altogether.