“We now pass you over to our nature correspondent, Richard Smith.”

“Thank you, John.

The reason for the explosions has now been discovered and confirmed. CCTV footage of the event which devastated the Swansea PC World last month revealed the most worrying development in recent history. Prior to this incident it was believed to be a series of terrorist attacks.”

The scene changed, CCTV footage, a large black bird flying into a window immediately followed by a huge explosion, the camera died leaving static and the scene returned to the studio.

“With me in the studio is Paul Graves, professor of avian biology at Oxford university. Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Now… What the hell is going on? How can a bird explode like that?”

The professor sighed. “We’re only just getting to grips with it ourselves. You know the first few events, I.S. claimed responsibility?”

“What are they doing? Force feeding them explosives?”

“Much, much worse. It took a lot of time and we lost several respected scientists in the initial attempts to capture one… We finally managed to lure one into a trap, gas it and get it into the lab without too much disturbance.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“After a dissection, we have discovered the cause.”

“And that is?”

“The birds have… changed… Their livers have now developed a… I’m sorry, this is very difficult. They’re synthesising nitroglycerin in their livers and not only that but to such a high concentration… Well, you’ve seen the results.”

“Nitroglycerin? How? That can’t be an evolutionary”

“No. No, it isn’t. After a further round of study, we have discovered a virus. A new, previously unknown strain of avian influenza.”

“BIRD FLU? How the hell can”

“Please, let me finish. This is not a naturally occurring virus. It’s been modified. Designed to infect any species of bird it can, designed to insert new genes into their cells and cause those cells in the liver to metabolise carbohydrates and produce, as I said, high explosive.”

“So, it is a terrorist attack?”

“It would appear so, yes. We have sequenced the virus and there was an unusual structure close to the beginning of the strand of DNA. Further study indicates who is responsible.”

“How?”

“We decoded it. It was in arabic. It said Allah Akhbar. Translated it means Allah is Greater. We have no idea how they did it, but it seems I.S. has weaponised our native avian population.”

“What can you suggest? To protect ourselves from this threat?”

“The only reason birds fly into windows is because they can’t see them. The best advice at this stage is to make them visible. Either tint your windows, put a semi-reflective film over them or tape them in a cross-hatch pattern. A bird will not fly into a window protected in this way because clearly it is visible to them then.”

“But doesn’t this mean any time a bird strikes anything…”

“Yes, yes it does. We are working on a counter to this virus, either a vaccine or perhaps a counter agent to reverse what has been done but it’ll take a long time to find out how they did it in the first place.”

“Thank you professor. So, there you have it. Tape your windows. It could save your life. John.”

“Thank you, Richard. And now, the weather.”