Health officials in Germany say the deadly H5N1 virus has reappeared in the country.
The lethal virus has been found in the bodies of at least three dead birds in Bavaria, making them Germany's first confirmed cases this year.
Germany's top veterinary laboratory, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, has confirmed that three wild birds, two swans and a goose, found in two lakes near Nuremberg have tested positive for the lethal strain of the virus and the body of at least one wild duck has also been confirmed to have some form of the virus.
The dead bodies of five more birds also found in the south are now being analysed to see if they also contain the deadly H5N1 virus.
Officials in Nuremburg say a federal epidemiological team will investigate the causes and background of the infection cases, while poultry farmers in the region have been told to confine all poultry birds to closed stalls.
A 21-day ban on bringing poultry, birds or poultry products in or out of the area, has been imposed and the region is now a quarantine zone.
The public have also been warned not to allow cats and dogs to roam freely in the quarantine zone.
The information has been sent to the European Commission which says the infected swans in Bavaria were the EU's first cases reported in wild birds in 2007, adding that H5N1 was detected in more than 700 wild birds in the EU in 2006.
To date some 13 European Union member states had confirmed cases of bird flu in 2006 - Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, France and Hungary.
Last week Czech veterinarians began culling several thousand turkeys on a farm after tests confirmed the country's first outbreak of a deadly form of bird flu in poultry.