Hi John,

Unless there was visible electrical arcing, it may be more likely that the
gull died due to the impact of the wire collision. Electrocution would
require simultaneous touching of both wires or a hot wire and something else
like a power pole that was grounded.

I have seen death by wire collision several times with other species such as
Mourning Dove and Ring-necked Pheasant.

I once watched a flock of Mourning Doves approaching the freeway I was
traveling on at their usual cruise velocity. At the last moment, as the
doves neared the roadway, they realized that their current vector would be
intercepted by an 18-wheeler. Immediately, the whole flock swooped upward
to avoid the truck, but in doing so they flew right through several power
lines that ran along the freeway. Three of the doves hit the wires and fell
to the ground.

Poor lighting conditions can fool even a bird's eye. During a dusk walk one
evening, several rooster pheasants flushed from the roadside and flew
rapidly downhill and away from me. Shortly after that I heard a loud
clanking sound coming from their direction. A pheasant had crashed into a
power line that was now wildly bouncing and rattling around. The impact was
so great that it caused one of the power poles to visibly shake too.

We often think of birds as being flawless masters of the air. And while they
are indeed masters of the air, they are not flawless.


Scott R
Yakima, WA
mryakima at gmail dot com






On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 5:02 PM, John Puschock <g_g_allin at hotmail.com>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> While waiting at a light on Boren Avenue in the Yesler Terrace section of
> Seattle this afternoon (12/11/10), I watched an immature Glaucous-winged
> Gull flying down the road towards the intersection. Suddenly it just
> dropped straight down onto the road. It apparently hit the electric bus
> wires. I didn't see any actual contact with the wires, and it seems odd
> that the gull would have hit the wires -- it didn't look like it had any
> intention of landing on them or anything else; it was in full flight mode --
> so maybe the electricity arced when the gull got close. Maybe someone in
> Tweeterdom with a better understanding of such things can confirm that this
> would be possible. It was raining at the time, FWIW.
>
> Anyway, electrocution seems to be the most reasonable explanation of what
> happened, rather than some other cause of sudden death. The gull did not
> move at all while falling -- other than the falling motion, obviously -- or
> after hitting the ground, so it presumably died instantly, though there
> wasn't much time to judge whether it was alive or dead. The traffic light
> had just changed from red to green when this happened, and the gull dropped
> down in the left lane right in front of the first car going through the
> intersection, which promptly ran over it with its driver side wheels...and
> the second car did the same, so if it wasn't dead when it hit the ground, it
> was soon after. Neither driver ran over it intentionally. They just didn't
> have enough time to react.
>
> John Puschock
> Wedgwood, Seattle
> g_g_allin at hotmail.com
> http://www.zbirdtours.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
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>
>
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