Why don't birds get electrocuted on power lines? 

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They dont get electrocuted because they are flying robots that recharge by sitting on power lines

Respect for the bird who took part in the demonstration in the name of science. She will be retweeted.

2:56 for those of you wondering why these guys are touching two wires and are still alive, the wires are at the same potential. This is a three-phase circuit with 2 wires per phase, and the two wires conduct the exact same current with the exact same voltage, so it's basically like touching two different parts of a very thick wire

I can still remember being really young, maybe 4 or 5, walking with my grandma and asking her, “why can the birds sit on the wire?” Her reply: “they have special feet.”

Imagine being this badass sitting on powerlines and shitting on humans

I feel so bad for laughing at that bird that just went drop

As a bird, this safety video has been very informative.

Note: while electrons do move between the power source and your device, if you had to wait for them to travel that whole distance to get a charge, you would be waiting a very, very long time. Instead, the energy comes from the electrons already inside your device being accelerated by the electric field. The circuit simply decides the shape and size of the electric field

In the 50s, as a boy I knew of a farmer that was a self taught electrician. He did odd jobs for farmers in the area. He would always show up for the job with a case of beer, which he would stand on while working. In those days they were made of heavy duty cardboard and glass bottles which you would return for credit. He said it made a very good insulator and you could always drink the beer. When sizing up a large job he would say "Well, thats a lot of beer!"

Because they always pay their "bill" on time ?

At a semiconductor plant where I worked a maintenance worker didn't put the lockout/tagout on the switch while he was working. A coworker turned it on and one of his arms got fried as the current moved through his body his other arm and one of his legs blew apart. Bless him he died from his injuries after 3 days and a couple of people got fired.

I suffered and survived 3 massive electrical discharges at the Washington DC VA hospital. I lost memory of the event for 4 years, lucky to be alive!!!

idk why I thought he was gonna say "To understand that, we must first become one with the birds."

I love how they straight up showed us a clip of a bird getting electrocuted.

I worked for a local power company for 30 years before I retired 3 years ago. I can say yes the bucket trucks are insulated from the bucket to about 15 foot down the neck. I can also say that you will feel a shock though minor if you touch the wire without high voltage gloves on.

Workers who repair power lines are literally heroes

someone argued with me that the bird had rubber boots.

Thanks for this informative video.

The electrons don't travel from the power plant to your house, that would be the case if it were DC (direct current) which is bad for long distances, instead it's AC (Alternating Current) meaning the electrons move back and forth in the wire (like you would use a saw)

This video gave me a total appreciation for bird 🐦 brain information.

I was here from the video - "Birds make transformer explode in *Houston*"

I'll remember this when i become a bird

Crypto currency is gradually moving towards something big and the price surge over the past few months is just the beginning of greater things to come. you got any advice for someone that is fresh to crypto. Don't know where to start..

Yaay, you just answered one of things that have bugged me everytime I see those birds sitting on the wires. Awesome!

2:18 Props for using that Home Alone clip

I remember watching a squirrel running along a wire in elementary school. It went near the pole and all the sudden a big smoky flash and he fell to the street. Knocked out power to a few blocks! We had to stay outside because the school wouldn’t let us in without working lights. We had like a 1 hour lunch break, it was sick

Very interesting. I have always been scared that they will get electrocuted when I see them on power Lines.

Yes, as an Electrician I have touched 120v electrical lines, but there are some tricks involved. First you can be grounded. Electricians never used aluminum ladders because aluminum conducts electricity, and would ground you. Electrician use fiberglass ladders, which don't conduct electricity. Also you don't touch the other 120v line or the neutral line.

Yo i literally watched that bird that bites the electrical wire a minute ago

That's cool and all but is no one gonna talk about the poor bird at 1:31

I seen a bird one day and it was sitting on a wire I stopped looked up at it and started to talk to it we had one of the greatest conversations ever!

I was sad to hear a Canada Goose fly into a power line once. The sound was so loud, my friend, me, and other people crossing the street were very startled. It was sad to see the goose loose its struggle once he or she was on the ground. There was what looked like a burned hole in the bird's chest. That's a completely different scenario from your video but it was really startling.

Interesting

"They still need to make sure they only touch one wire at a time though" Next clip: *electricians crawling on two wires at a time*

Short and informative. Thanks for the video!

I love videos that attract intelligent conversations, rather than a bunch of trolls looking for a stranger to fight with.

1:33 the way the bird folded 💀

Very informative video, surprised this doesn't have more views.

In short: Electricity is a term used to describe the flow of electrons through a medium with either a uniform electrical potential or a different electrical potential. When a conductor that is not attached to something else touches a medium having uniform electrical potential, the flow of electrons remains within the loop as there is no other electrical potential to travel to. But if a conductor is, say, attached to the ground, then electricity will flow from the higher potential to the lower potential through it.

The house where I grew up had a power line in back. On several occasions a bird sitting on the wire or the transformer got electrocuted and landed in our back yard.

One day this will be in everyone's recommended and it'll get like 2+ million views over night.

1:33 from alive to dead in a second edit: i saw the longer version of the video, it actually didn't die, it was stunned

In my country, civet cats usually climb and travel via the wires in urban areas. They never seemed to get electrocuted as well.

I actually saw a pigeon got electrocuted by powerlines on a rainy day, probably the raindrops from its flapping wings caused it to connect to 2 lines at once. The sparks and noises were quite phenomenal.

Thanks for the info

Wow! The best explanation of how electricity flows for anyone who didn’t work with it.The more you know about something, the less scary it is and more predictable but electricity is still one of those things you MUST respect no matter how much you think you know about it.

Amazing! This was something that always intrigued me. Why birds do not get electrocuted while sitting on the power line

Great video. Thank you!

This is the most ask question during the first week of semester in an Electrical/Mechanical Engineering degree course

1:31 Bird: Aight imma head out. 💀⚰️

Very informative, thanks for sharing.

The curiosity has been killing me for years now i know thank you you have earned a sub

This question was in mind in years and thank you for making this clear to me.

An information video that gets straight to the point while remaining under 10 mins. You earned a sub, sir.

I was asking my parents this question a few months ago about how does birds stand on the power lines with feeling the electricity on there feet when they stand on it.

A Faraday cage is a good idea. When we worked on live high voltage this cage came in very handy.

A must watch video for all the birds, Pet owners should educate their birds to spread awareness

2:30 these guys are masters beyond measure. They have balls of steel.

The only easy video I found in youtube and google. Thanks for the video. I understood nothing from books.

2:30 my mans really almost got hit with force lightning and just looks calm asf lmao

Allow me to correct a crucial mistake you made in your video about no current flowing through birds sitting on the single power line phase: Are you aware of the step voltage? When a current flows through a loop regardless of its length a certain differential loss is always present. That's why a bird on the power line represents a high-value resistor hooked up in parallel to the line it sits on unless it lifts one leg off and detaches the connection ( open circuit ). A barely noticeable amount of current also flows through its body, but no where nearly enough to be even noticed ( if at all ). Another dangerous situation takes place upon being near a thunderstorm when a lightning bolt strikes the earth at this point of time. The current flowing through the ground spreads 360° outwards. The further more out it flows, the more the voltage drops. That drop in voltage in relation to the distance from the starting point is a dangerous matter. A person walking nearby suddenly feels that voltage difference shooting through his/her legs, causing it to instantly feel uncomfortable and eventually collapsing. That's why it is important to keep both feet tight together in order to keep that crucial voltage difference as low as possible. Wether the voltage difference varies depends upon the earth conductivity in dry or wet condition. Also the amount of minerals and salt in the soil are a contrubiting factor in regards of the dirt chemistry.

They use those high-voltage lines to keep feet warm in the winter. However, if the line happens to be not live in the winter, it can instantly freeze them stuck on it.

How heavy birds with small wings can fly up to power lines in the first place is more intriguing.

This is one of my deepest teenage questions to which nobody I know gave a good answer. Thank you for finally putting my question to rest.

2:02 my man got some really cool moves 😂

as a kid in el salvador i remember birds sleeping in the electric wires (usulutan alameda) i remember seeing a few dead on the pavement

I have learnt something new today. Thank you😊

1:49 *Chuckles* I'm in danger

I remember asking my high school physics teacher the question if a person can hang from a power line and avoid electrocution as long as they remain off the ground. He said it's also dependent on the "potential difference". I don't remember the explanation as he gave it to me, but what my brain stored is basically that you can't just hover 1cm off the ground while holding onto a high voltage line and expect not to get fried. So it's not just a simple matter of "as long as I don't touch the ground I'll be fine".

Ur explaination was really osm thanku so much for this concept👍👍

@ 2:30..."Hello Mr. George...yeah, I'm the new guy....the Old guy just quit...and me too"!

The clip at 1:51 is a bit misleading. The very high voltage lines shown are actually dangerous for birds to land on and you won't see birds on them (they feel pain as they get close to the wire and avoid landing on it - usually - although sometimes they do get killed). The wires with birds on them in this clip are so-called "shield wires" and they are grounded. Their purpose is to help prevent direct lightning strikes to the power lines (the lightning will usually strike the grounded, higher shield wire instead). The reason why very high voltage (>100,000 V) lines are a problem for birds is that all objects, including birds, have a property called capacitance. The capacitance is bigger when the object is bigger. Since these (and almost all) lines are alternating current, connecting a capacitive load allows a small current flow (essentially electrons flow into and back out of the object on each cycle of the AC). The higher the voltage, the more current flow. A typical residential street high voltage line (about 10,000 V) isn't high enough voltage to affect the birds but large cross-country lines (typically 300,000 V) are a problem.

Plot twist: You are a bird, watching this to understand why you don't get electrocuted while chilling on power lines with your homies.

Thank you for sharing.

I've always wondered about this since I was a kid.

I asked this question to the science teacher in my 9th standard 2011....after 10 years I am getting satisfactory answer. Thanks to youtube🙏

Very well explained. Thank you to whoever put this together

Really interesting. I learnt something from the new. Thanks

Hi, simple and well done!!!

What happens if a one legged bird lands on the wire

So, if I end up hanging on a power line, I'll be fine as long as I don't touch the ground while I'm doing that. Got it.

So what happens when you hang on one cable without your feet touching the floor? Do you still get zapped?

Great video!

I've wondered this my whole life. Thank you

I’ve always wondered about that. But even if they do end up getting electrocuted for some reason, there’d be numerous bird corpses lying around anywhere, and that’d also be a complete hassle to clean all of that up.

Ground or return circuit has to come within several feet of the power line to complete the circuit on a dry day. Heavy humidity can increase that distance due to conductive impurities suspended in the air. This applies to anything in contact with the wire, like a bird sitting on it too.

When the birds are young their feet are dipped in Rubber ...😂😂😂

Electrical line man, the most dangerous job.

very educational and easy to understand. Thanks for the great vid.

0:53 It's just completely wrong. Electrons move from lower electrical potential to a higher one, not the other way around. It's true that the movement of electrons is what makes the current flow. But the general convention is that the current flows opposite to the flow of elections i.e. current flows from higher potential to a lower one. If electrons moved from higher potential to a lower one, then that would make the higher potential negatively charged. But in reality, it's always the positively charged terminal that has the higher potential.

Thanks for the video bud.

Best explanation ever

Thank you so much for your brief explanation to this mystery... Love your unique way of explaining each point that even a child can understand... Thanks much

Thanks It is informative and simple explanation

Cockatoo’s hang upside down on them. Funny ass birds

I'm using a headset right now, and that unexpected sound effect at 1:32 shocked me into battle stance.

I had no idea those wires were live. I figured it was like the cords in our homes that could be touched, like when you remove a plug from the wall...

Thank god now I can watch this video I was looking for it

Shocking information!!