This is the Guardian. With the extreme heat waves we're having this summer, many of us will be heading to beaches and coastlines.

If you have gone, you might have seen signs up, warning against going near or

touching any sick or dead birds. And that's because the UK is experiencing its worst ever outbreak of avian influenza, bird flu.

And it's hard to comprehend how devastating it's been.

It's really horrific and actually I was thinking about like

how do you tell this story about bird flu because if these birds were falling in

cities around us people would be absolutely horrified.

Rather than the birds most of us encounter regularly,

the outbreak has, so far, been moving through seabird populations.

Lots of these are really vulnerable birds already,

and then bird flu comes and wipes out like three quarters of colonies.

I know it's really horrible to picture but birds have been literally falling from the sky in distress.

I've seen videos of islands and conservationists walking around in hazmat suits and it's literally littered with

dead birds every few meters is another dead bird.

So today I'm speaking to Biodiversity reporter Phoebe Western about why this strain of bird flu has been so deadly,

how it's got into the wild bird populations and what we can expect in the months ahead.

From the Guardian, I'm Madeline Finley and this is Science Weekly. Phoebe, this current outbreak of bird flu, how bad is it?

So the word unprecedented is generally overused, but this situation merits it.

We've got a really contagious, dangerous version of bird flu that is ripping through our wild bird populations.

It's not just in the UK, it's been detected in every country in Europe,

it's pretty much all over the world.

And in the UK it is impacting our breeding seabirds the most.

...