{"id":482,"date":"2010-07-12T10:09:09","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T02:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sg\/?p=482"},"modified":"2010-07-12T10:09:09","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T02:09:09","slug":"why-birds-land-on-electrical-wires-without-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/2010\/07\/why-birds-land-on-electrical-wires-without-harm\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is It That Birds Can Land on Electrical Wires Without Getting Shocked?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the recent Surge Protection Seminar which I attended in Thailand , a question was posted to the 60 participants, who were mainly maintenance engineers from the PTT group, \u201cWhy is it that birds can land on electrical wires without getting shocked?\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_484\" style=\"width: 570px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Birds-standing-on-the-power-lines1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-484\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484\" title=\"Birds standing on the power lines\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Birds-standing-on-the-power-lines1.jpg\" alt=\"Birds standing on the power lines\" width=\"560\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Birds-standing-on-the-power-lines1.jpg 560w, https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Birds-standing-on-the-power-lines1-300x185.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Birds standing on the power lines<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">\n<p>I remember vividly asking myself this question in my head when I was a child and I always thought that it was the wadding on the wires that kept the birds away from contacting those high voltage wires.\u00a0 I realized that I was wrong all these while when one brave soul stood up and stated his answer, loudly:\u201cIt is not the insulation.\u00a0 It is the nature of electricity at work!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The speaker, Mr. Holger Heckler, went further elaborating that when a bird rests on the live wire, its body will be charged to the same voltage as the wire.\u00a0 From the standpoint of electrical reactions, electric current flows from a point with higher voltage to one with lower voltage.\u00a0 As a result, electric current will not pass through the bird\u2019s body via the live wire since they are on equal voltage charge. However, imagine if a bird accidentally comes into contact with both an electrical ground and the power line at the same time, it completes an electrical circuit, and therefore an electric shock is inevitable!<\/p>\n<p>This is why power lines are constructed with wide gaps between the conducting and grounding wires, to minimize this risk.<\/p>\n<p>This is also the reason why we were always told to keep our feet close together when we have no other places to hide during a thunderstorm.\u00a0 Cows are unfortunately less likely to survive thunderstorms as the step potential between its two feet is higher.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Potential-Difference.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-486 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Potential-Difference.jpg\" alt=\"Potential Difference\" width=\"437\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Potential-Difference.jpg 437w, https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Potential-Difference-300x238.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 437px) 100vw, 437px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From an electrical system stance, this is why engineers adopt proper grounding and bonding techniques to prevent damages to the electrical devices during a breakdown.\u00a0 Surge protection devices are always added to reinforce the protection of the electrical system from lightning and switching magnetic surges.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Ground-and-Meshed-Equipotential-Bonding-System.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-487 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Ground-and-Meshed-Equipotential-Bonding-System.jpg\" alt=\"Ground and Meshed Equipotential Bonding System\" width=\"554\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Ground-and-Meshed-Equipotential-Bonding-System.jpg 683w, https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Ground-and-Meshed-Equipotential-Bonding-System-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Ground-and-Meshed-Equipotential-Bonding-System-624x329.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 554px) 100vw, 554px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the things I liked about Mr. Holger Heckler\u2019s approach to speaking at such seminar was that he managed to spur the interests of the audiences and got them all connected instantly with his brilliant insights.\u00a0 He did not fly all the way from Germany to Thailand just to make this statement.\u00a0 He made sure that what he delivered was stimulating enough to keep the participants awake throughout the entire day.<\/p>\n<p>A big salute to Mr. Holger Heckler who made it possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the recent Surge Protection Seminar which I attended in Thailand , a question was posted to the 60 participants, who were mainly maintenance engineers from the PTT group, \u201cWhy is it that birds can land on electrical wires without getting shocked?\u201d I remember vividly asking myself this question in my head when I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[72,265,289,392,512,553,741],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-bonding-techniques","tag-grounding","tag-high-voltage","tag-lighting-protection","tag-phoenix-contact","tag-potential-difference","tag-surge-protection"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Is It That Birds Can Land on Electrical Wires Without Getting Shocked? | Southeast Asia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/2010\/07\/why-birds-land-on-electrical-wires-without-harm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Is It That Birds Can Land on Electrical Wires Without Getting Shocked? | Southeast Asia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During the recent Surge Protection Seminar which I attended in Thailand , a question was posted to the 60 participants, who were mainly maintenance engineers from the PTT group, \u201cWhy is it that birds can land on electrical wires without getting shocked?\u201d I remember vividly asking myself this question in my head when I was [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/2010\/07\/why-birds-land-on-electrical-wires-without-harm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Southeast Asia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/phoenixcontactsea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-12T02:09:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2010\/06\/Birds-standing-on-the-power-lines1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Siang Leng\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Phoenix_Contact\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Phoenix_Contact\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Siang Leng\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/2010\/07\/why-birds-land-on-electrical-wires-without-harm\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.phoenixcontact.com\/marketing-sea\/2010\/07\/why-birds-land-on-electrical-wires-without-harm\/\",\"name\":\"Why Is It That Birds Can Land on Electrical Wires Without Getting Shocked? 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