Why don't birds on overhead power cables get electrocuted?

Question

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Answer 1

Electricity always follows the path of less resitance.  When electricity is flowing down a power line, it will always take the shortest route to its destination.

A bird that stands on the power line has two feet on the same power line.  The electricty does not need to go up one leg through the body, then back down the other leg to continue on.  This would me a much longer path than if it simply stayed on the wire and continued along.  Since it dosen't need to go up one leg and down the other, it doesn't.  No electricty flows through the bird, it harmlessly passes under it through the wire.

Now if the bird put one foot on two different wires, it would be a completly different story.  If there was one foot on each wire, the fastest way for the electricty to get from one wire to the next would be for it to go up one leg and down the other.  Electricity would flow through the bird and it would be electrocuted.

Answer 2

Although they many times sit on bare wires at tens of thousands of volts or more they don't complete a circuit.  They are at a high voltage but there is nowhere for the current to go.