Nature Example
🕊️
Why Birds Can Sit on Power Lines
Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Click here for the license
Have you ever looked up and seen birds sitting on a big electrical wire and wondered why they don't get a shock?
It's because they are not part of a circuit!
Electricity needs a complete loop to flow. As long as the bird is only touching one wire, the electricity is happy to just stay in the wire and flow right past its feet. It doesn't want to go into the bird because there's nowhere to go.
💡 Fun Facts
- The bird is safe because it's not touching the ground (or another wire) at the same time.
- If the bird was very big and touched two wires at once, or touched the wire and a metal pole at the same time, it would make a circuit. ZAP!
- This is why it is SO dangerous to touch a fallen power line—you are standing on the ground, so you would complete the circuit!