Why do birds stay on electric wires and not get hurt?

Question

why?

Answer 1

They have both feet on the same wire. You have to have a positive and negative connection in order to get zapped

Answer 2

Electric current is essentially the movement of electrons; it is the movement of electrons through an animal's vital organs that kills or injures the animal (either from the resulting heat or by disrupting the electrical control signals within the body).

In order to make something (like an electron) move, you have to push it somehow. Voltage is the electrical pressure that causes electrons to move. There needs to be a difference in the force/pressure in order for the electrons to move.

Imagine if you and I stood on opposite sides of a table and both pushed with the same force. It could be 1 pound, 10 pounds, or 1 million pounds each, the table would not move. If, however, one of us stops pushing or pushes with less force than the other, the table will (likely) begin to move.

So, a bird on a wire is experiencing an electrical pressure through its feet (most typically in the US on the order of magnitude of 7-8000 Volts with respect to ground). When both feet are on the wire, each foot has the same electrical pressure pushing in, so no electrons move between the bird's feet and it survives.

Also, the bird is surrounded by air, an electrical insulator. It would be similar to your trying to push the table through a brick wall; you couldn't push hard enough to make the table move through the wall (unless you got a bulldozer and really applied an extremely high force).

So the bird is not injured until and unless it makes contact with another conductor that is at a voltage different from what it is standing on (that is to say anything that conducts electricity, even another bird, a tree limb, someone standing on the ground, etc. -- it wouldn't need to be a wire). At that point, the higher voltage "wins out" and the electrons will move and injure or kill the bird.

The key is that the birds that survive are contacting only one conductor.

It is important to understand that the second connection does not HAVE to be ground. Often it is ground; however, contact with any conductor energized at a different voltage is all that is required in order to have current flow and the resulting damage.

Then, your lights go out, and some poor line mechanic is called out of bed to get them back on!

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

they has to be some grounding of the wire before the bird will get shocked..if the bird was touchin something along with the wire it would get shocked or electricuted.

Answer 5

because they are not touching any thing else and therefore the current has no route to travel.  You could technically hang from the same line and be fine, but should you touch anything, but the wire and bam, you're electrocuted.

Answer 6

Do you mean electric wire that is used in fencing??

or power lines??

cuz if the first i have always wondered that!!!

i think it has something to do with how little they wiegh

but i could be wrong

Answer 7

They aren't grounded.  If they had one leg on the ground and one on the wire - zap.

j

Answer 8

cuz theyre birds.

Answer 9

Just like your battiers in the car need 2 connections to be electric  to use in the car.

A bird can stand on the electric wires with out getting killed because they do not have a GROUND connection to their bodies. Now on electric cattle fences you will see a bird sometime who did get killed on those because the bird doesn't realise not to touch the pole with it's other foot thinking it will just hang onto the pole which is grounded to stand on the wire. Thus getting electricuted.

Birds on wires above our heads or over our homes or streets have no ground contact they are touching, people only get electricuted up on the same wires because they have got to touch the box they stand in that raises them up to the wire, or they are climbing a pole that is touching the ground.

Without the ground contact, their is no eltricitiy to hurt the birds. They can land on them and fly off of them without getting hurt. They soon learn by watching others, not to go near the poles holding the wires up.