How can birds sit on power lines?
Have you talked about your ideas? Do you agree with one of the characters or do
you think something different? Here are some ways of finding out more.
Look at some photographs of birds’ feet. Talk about whether they might be made
from rubber and how rubber feet might be useful to a bird. Discuss how you can
get an electric shock, and what might be different for the bird on the wire.
sometimes electricity companies put marker buoys on power lines to make them
more visible where there are lots of large birds in the area. If birds can sit on power
lines, why do you think marker buoys are useful?
How can birds sit on power lines?
Here is what a scientist might say. Did you find any evidence to support or justify these ideas?
Are there any questions that you still need to answer?
An electric current flowing through your body will give you an electric shock. For a current to
flow, there needs to be to be a difference in voltage to push the current and complete a circuit
for it to flow round. Birds can perch on an electrical wire because both their feet are at the same
voltage, and the electricity cannot flow to earth because there is no complete circuit for it to flow
through. This means that the electricity cannot flow. If a bird has one leg on the ground, and the
other on a wire, the circuit will be completed because the electricity can flow through them to
earth, so it will be electrocuted. If it has a leg on one wire and a part of its body touches a second
wire at a different voltage, the same thing will happen. Make a list of the dangers engineers who
inspect live 400kV overhead cables might experience and you think they overcome these
dangers.
How can birds sit on power lines?