Around 100 people will be walking stretches of South East coast for the RSPB's Beached Bird Survey.
The UK-wide initiative will see around 600 surveyors record the number of washed-up dead birds and their state of oiling.
The survey has been running since 1971 to highlight illegal oil spills and reduce seabird deaths. The data will feed into findings from similar surveys across Europe.
Mark Weston, RSPB South East survey volunteer, said: 'This is a grim job but it's massively important in the fight to save our seabirds.
'Pollution of the world's oceans and seas from oil kills large number of birds every year, and poses serious threats to wintering seabird populations. It's not just major oil spills that affect seabirds, day-to-day pollution from ships illegally cleaning out their tanks is also a problem.
'It's a terrible death. Oil waterlogs a bird's feathers so that it drowns, dies of cold or is poisoned when it tries to clean its plumage.'
The South East coast has one of the busiest shipping lanes. It is also a major migration route for seabirds as they travel to north-east breeding grounds. Diving seabirds like guillemots, razorbills, puffins and gannets are particularly affected.
The findings will be available later in the year.