How come birds never get electricuted when they sit on telephone wires?

Question

This has been baffling me ever since as we have telephone wires with birds on them yet none of them seem to get zapped

Answer 1

Telephone wires are insulated, (no voltage on the surface), and at any rate carry low voltages.
Birds may alight on a bare low voltage power line
without harm as long as they contact only one wire.
( It takes either contact with another wire or the ground
to expose them to a voltage difference.)
Don't however, try this at home! - Even a bad ground
connection can expose you to danger.

Answer 2

Like all energy, electricity seeks equilibrium, or balance. That means electricity will flow from high-energy areas to areas of less energy, always using the path of least resistance. So if the bird has one foot on our original wire, and the other foot on, for example, the ground or on a different wire with less voltage, the bird would be electrocuted, because the electricity would pass through the bird on its way from the high-voltage line to the lower-voltage line or the ground.

But as long as both of the bird's feet are on the same wire (or wires of the same voltage), the bird is safe. The current doesn't have anywhere else to go, so the electricity won't pass through the bird--it stays on the path of least resistance, the wire.

Not from source:
Incidently, don't fly kites around wires because you could very well end up toast

Answer 3

They don't get electrocuted because they're only touching one wire at any time. Electricity needs somewhere to go in order to flow. When you touch a wire with an aluminium ladder, you'll get electrocuted because the ladder gives the electricity a path to ground. And, since you're touching the ladder, some of the current will pass through you. If you were to grab just one wire, you'd be safe too. But if that wire snaps and you swing to the ground, or, you reach over and touch another wire, you'll be zapped.
In some of the western U.S. States, they were seeing eagles being electrocuted when they tried to land on top of the poles. This happened because their wings were so wide that they were touching two wires as they landed. So the authorities had to install wooden "T" shaped 2x4s to give the eagles a safe place to land.

Answer 4

How can birds sit on electrical wires and not get electrocuted? asks Jonathan Sanchez, a student in Lynbrook, NY.

High above the ground, electrical and telephone poles and their connecting wires must seem made for birds, like artificial trees with limbs that stretch on forever. Sometimes a hundred birds will be stretched out along a wire, in a kind of high-tension convention.

How come a bird on a wire doesn't get shocked? When the bird perches on a live wire, her body becomes charged--for the moment, it's at the same voltage as the wire. But no current flows into her body. A body is a poor conductor compared to copper wire, so there's no reason for electrons to take a detour through the bird. More importantly, electrons current flow from a region of high voltage to one of low voltage. The drifting current, in effect, ignores the bird.

But if a bird (or a power line worker) accidentally touches an electrical "ground" while in contact with the high-voltage wire, she completes an electrical circuit. A ground is a region of approximately zero voltage. The earth, and anything touching it that can conduct current, is the ground.

Like water flowing over a dam into a river, current surges through the bird (or person's) body on its way into the ground. Severe injury or death by electrocution is the result.

That's why a squirrel can run across an electrical line, but sadly die when its foot makes contact with the (grounded) transformer on the pole at wire's end.

It's also why drivers and passengers are warned to stay inside the car if it runs into a downed power line. Touching the ground with your foot would complete the circuit: Electrons would flow from the wire, into the car, and through you on their way into the earth. (Inside the car you are usually protected by the car's four rubber tires, which act as insulators between car and ground.)

Likewise, birds can get in trouble with power lines if wing or wrist bones--or wet feathers--connect bare wires and grounds.

Raptors (birds of prey) are especially likely to be killed by power lines, particularly in the western U.S. In wide-open plains and deserts, power poles are often the only high perches available for hunters like Bald and Golden eagles and Great Horned owls, who survey the landscape for prey and take off into rising wind currents.

Such large birds can easily contact two wires or a wire and a transformer with their great wingspread. And raptors can easily brush against a live wire while settling onto a (grounded) pole-top. Thousands are killed by power lines each year.

How to protect big birds? Power lines can be made less dangerous by widening the gap between conducting and ground wires, insulating wires and metal parts, and moving wires farther away from pole tops. And guards can be built around favorite raptor perches.

Answer 5

okay, so this isn't really an answer (mainly because several of the answers i read sound plausible), but once i had my power go out for over 3 hours because an iguana stepped on the grounded wire at the transformer behind my house. so my guess would be that if some stupid pigeon landed there it would probably be kentucky fried, but since they mainly land on the coated wires they tend to stay safe.

Answer 6

Because the birds don't make a ground connection. If the bird reaches over to peck at an insect on the power pole, ZAP. Instant fried bird.

Every once in a great while you'll find a dead bird under power lines.

Answer 7

The wires are coated. Some birds do get zapped when there are defects in the coating, but for the most part they're safe. You don't think they'd just leave exposed wires out there, do you? It'd be dangerous to leave uncoated wires in the rain!

Answer 8

u can only be electricuted if u complete a circute. when the bird is on wire it could only be zapped if it is ground out causing a circute like a wire from bird to the ground or the bird to pole.

Answer 9

People would get zapped if we touched it standing on the ground because the electricity would transfer through the body to the ground. Birds aren't touching the ground so the electricity won't transfer anywhere. All charges are trying to get to the ground. It's nothing to do with coating and whatnot... just basic physics of how charges transfer.

Answer 10

The birds use high quality insulating tape to bind their legs, the tape can be purchased from good leading DIY stores.