Kathy Crough, age 9, of Santa Maria, California, for her question:
Why aren’t birds on telephone wires electrocuted?
Thousands of our little songbirds are getting ready to fly south for the winter. They like to travel in large flocks, so they gather together in groups before they start out on their long journeys. Often they gather on telephone wires, perching on the lines like notes on a page of music. Naturally, we know that touching electric wires is dangerous, so we worry about those little do, re, mi birds. Actually, they are quite safe. But please remember birds can do many things we cannot do. It is not safe for people to try perching on telephone wires or even touching them.
Telephone wires carry along mighty powerful currents of electricity, as do the high tension wires strung along between high pylons. The fierce current travels along twisted copper wires. The current in a bare telephone wire is strong enough to electrocute a person, or frizzle a little bird in a second. However, two things keep a bird from being electrocuted.
One is that the copper wire that carries the current is tightly sheathed in a rubbery jacket. This material helps to seal the fierce current inside. But even that does not make it safe for a person to touch because sometimes the jacket gets worn and the bare wire is exposed. The other thing that saves the birds is that they are not touching the ground or touching something that is connected to the ground, for on each telephone pole are insulators made of material that doesn’t carry an electric current. They keep the current running along the wire and don’t let it escape down to the earth.
To get electrocuted, a bird or animal has to act as a link between the electricity carrying wire and the ground. If a bird could lean down and touch the ground, it would immediately be caught in an electrical booby trap, and might die in a second. A bird might even be electrocuted if he held onto a wet string that touched the earth. But if no part of his body is connected in any way to the earth, he is quite safe.
The little birds up there are too small to reach down and touch the ground and they don’t dangle strings. But a long string makes us think of a kite. The string on a high flying kite leads down to the ground where somebody is holding it. On a gusty day, the kite may get tangled in the high telephone wires. There the shocking booby trap waits to do its worst. It might, just might be able to dash down a moist string and whack the person holding it at the other end. After all, the rules say it may strike when something that touches it leads doom to the ground. So if you’re ever flying a kite and you see it or its string heading for any electric wires, LET GO OF THE STRING.
Electric current, of course, is very useful but it must be tamed to work. Other¬wise it can be very, very dangerous. The telephone people wrap the wires in insulated coats and either bury them safely underground or string them out of our reach on high poles. But we also have to watch out for a few dangers for ourselves. Just because birds can perch on the wires doesn’t mean we can get away with it. In fact, the best rule about wires that carry electricity is not to get near them in any way.