Do electricity power lines warm a bird's feet?

Interesting question. Power lines are usually very high voltage in an attempt to reduce energy loss from heating, this is why the power lines pass through a transformer before running to the house, so some heating exists.

Wikipedia gives the transmission loss of 7% . . . so you could find the average power consumption and the miles of transmission line in order to find out how much heat is dissipated per foot if you want.

I can see where you're coming from, and an electricity power line is more powerful that a radio cable, but considering the fact that for electricity to do anything anyway, it needs to be earthed, and for it to warm up it also has to work, hence be earthed, which they aren't, because the birds wouldn't survive it if it was!

Basically my answer is no, the cables will be as warm as the surroundings. This could happen if it has been sunny and they have conducted a large amount of heat, but otherwise, No.

Apologies for my insane amount of commas.

No. generally birds sit on one line, and electricity cannot flow through its body. Another reason, birds feet is covered with the skin, which is an insulator. If the power line is red hot, that may warm birds feet

It won't be hot due to electricity, but it may be that the power lines are a good conducter of heat, so with a sun shining on them for a few hours per day, they are going to be quite warm, and perhaps this is why the birds stand on them

Birds are social animals and wires high off the ground and away from other animals seems like a logical safe place to sit.

http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/how_come_bir...

In the third world countries,where the electricity wires and the polls are found along the roadside. The birds sit on the wires for long in the winter. These wires are made of copper,with plastic as insulator. They are always quite hot due to electricity conduction. It seems right to me that the birds want some heat and energy from these high tension or heat conducting wires. (In the 3rd world countries)

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You just reminded me of when I went to India 20 years ago and stayed for a couple of years. There was this bat that got electrocuted when its wings hit both wires and it was just dried and stuck up there for the longest time and for months I would pass and nobody even bothered to go get it down.

My apartment was next to a park and the largest tree was next to my bedroom and these giant bats would come and dangle right infront of my window which was creepy as hell. A bunch of times little bats came into my apartments and hid in the curtains and I had to get them out.

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How can birds sit on electrical wires and not get electrocuted? asks Jonathan Sanchez, a student in Lynbrook, NY.

High above the ground, electrical and telephone poles and their connecting wires must seem made for birds, like artificial trees with limbs that stretch on forever. Sometimes a hundred birds will be stretched out along a wire, in a kind of high-tension convention.

How come a bird on a wire doesn't get shocked? When the bird perches on a live wire, her body becomes charged--for the moment, it's at the same voltage as the wire. But no current flows into her body. A body is a poor conductor compared to copper wire, so there's no reason for electrons to take a detour through the bird. More importantly, electrons current flow from a region of high voltage to one of low voltage. The drifting current, in effect, ignores the bird.

But if a bird (or a power line worker) accidentally touches an electrical "ground" while in contact with the high-voltage wire, she completes an electrical circuit. A ground is a region of approximately zero voltage. The earth, and anything touching it that can conduct current, is the ground.

Like water flowing over a dam into a river, current surges through the bird (or person's) body on its way into the ground. Severe injury or death by electrocution is the result.

That's why a squirrel can run across an electrical line, but sadly die when its foot makes contact with the (grounded) transformer on the pole at wire's end.

It's also why drivers and passengers are warned to stay inside the car if it runs into a downed power line. Touching the ground with your foot would complete the circuit: Electrons would flow from the wire, into the car, and through you on their way into the earth. (Inside the car you are usually protected by the car's four rubber tires, which act as insulators between car and ground.)

Likewise, birds can get in trouble with power lines if wing or wrist bones--or wet feathers--connect bare wires and grounds.

Raptors (birds of prey) are especially likely to be killed by power lines, particularly in the western U.S. In wide-open plains and deserts, power poles are often the only high perches available for hunters like Bald and Golden eagles and Great Horned owls, who survey the landscape for prey and take off into rising wind currents.

Such large birds can easily contact two wires or a wire and a transformer with their great wingspread. And raptors can easily brush against a live wire while settling onto a (grounded) pole-top. Thousands are killed by power lines each year.

How to protect big birds? Power lines can be made less dangerous by widening the gap between conducting and ground wires, insulating wires and metal parts, and moving wires farther away from pole tops. And guards can be built around favorite raptor perches.

http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/birdsonwires...

Think about this logically. When you grab an electric cable(From, say, your radio or whatever), does it feel warm? Of course not.

only if sufficient power was drawn through the cable causing it to heat up.

but normally no

no.but they can get elctricuted if they touch two lines

Buy her socks like everyone else

no...but they can get electrocuted.