The article originally appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times.

ASHEVILLE – Despite the onslaught of cold and snow expected in Western North Carolina, birders will be showing some bird love this Valentine's Weekend during the Great Backyard Bird Count. The 18th annual North Carolina event — which has been going on nationally for more than 100 years — will take place Friday through Monday, giving birders an opportunity to become citizen scientists from their own backyards.

Participation in the count, a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, is free. Anyone anywhere in the world can count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count and enter their sightings on the website www.BirdCount.org. The information gathered by tens of thousands of volunteers helps track changes in bird populations on a massive scale.

"Much like the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, the idea is to get data that covers a long period of time," said Tom Tribble, president of the Elisha Mitchell Audubon Society, based in Asheville.

"Anyone can do it from their backyard. The idea is to get lots of people from different countries over a period of years, collecting data on birds," he said. "Even though it might not be perfect, it can provide valuable data that scientists can use to track the status of birds, which are increasing or decreasing, and the distribution of birds."

"The data collected by thousands of citizen scientists across North Carolina is increasingly important to Audubon's work as we develop new conservation methods to protect our birds from the effects of climate change," said Heather Hahn, Audubon North Carolina executive director.

She said North Carolina continues to be a top-performing state for the Great Backyard count. During last year's event, more than 5,000 checklists were submitted in North Carolina. The largest single species count was 12,000 redheads at Ocracoke Island. The most frequently reported species were the Northern cardinal and dark-eyed junco. In total, 204 individual species were spotted during the four-day event.

Bird watchers from 135 countries participated in the 2014 count, documenting nearly 4,300 species on more than 144,000 bird checklists. Many fell in love with the snowy owl during the last count when the birds were reported in unprecedented numbers across southeastern Canada, the Great Lakes states, the Northeast and down the Atlantic Coast. Snowy owls also can be expected to show up in higher numbers during this year's count.

To sign up for the GBBC, visit www.BirdCount.org.