• Question: Why don't birds get electrocuted when they land on an electric wire?

    Asked by anon-241420 to Ross, Natalia, Martin, Gabriela, Ellie, Chukwuka on 13 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Eleanor Spence

      Eleanor Spence answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      The reason that birds don’t get electrocuted whilst they sit on power cables is that both the birds feet are at the same potential, so the electricity doesn’t flow through them. If we were to touch the wire, we would be electrocuted because our feet are grounded so the electricity would flow through us!

    • Photo: Martin Johnsson

      Martin Johnsson answered on 13 Mar 2020: last edited 13 Mar 2020 3:35 pm

      I’m not a physicist, so let me see if I can answer this without messing up the explanation 🙂

      Electricity flows where there is a difference in electric charge, a “voltage”, and electricity flows the way that has the least resistance.

      If a bird was touching both an electric wire and the ground, for example, the electricity would flow from the wire to the ground, and it would flow through the bird (which would offer less resistance than the air). That would be bad news for the bird.

      But as long as the bird only touches the wire, the electricity will continue flowing through the wire, which has much less resistance, bypassing the bird.

      (Edit: I didn’t see that Ellie had already given a more succinct version of the answer! Sorry!)

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