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Asked by anon-200929 to Leigh, Rosemary, Oliver, Jordan, Hannah, David on 3 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by anon-200540, anon-200928.
Question: why don't birds get eletrocuted when they land on live wires
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Leigh Kesler answered on 3 Mar 2019:
When someone or something gets electrocuted, current is moving through their body to the ground. Current can only move between objects that have different voltages. For example, this happens if something touches both a live outlet and the ground terminal.
When a bird is on a live wire, all the parts of the wire have about the same voltage. That means that both of the bird’s feet are at the same voltage, so no current can flow between them. If, somehow, the bird had one foot on the wire and another on the ground, that would be a different story (and not a good story for the bird).
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anon-200542 commented on :
Because the birds are not earthed, this means that the electricity does not pass through them as there is no way to get to the ground through the birds.