If there are only two electric wires, then only one is likely energized so
the bird should not have been electrocuted.

The other would be the neutral.

Two energized wires need to be well spaced or there would be outages when
the wires blew into each other.



I've seen poisoned Starlings drop out of the sky as you described.



CraigCorder
Cheney

2cbird att hughes dott nett





From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu
[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of John
Puschock
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 7:17 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Gull electrocuted in Seattle



>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 can't eliminate the possibility that it was due to a collision, but with
the way the gull fell, it didn't obviously look like it collided with the
wire. In a collision, I would expect the bird to tumble or spin though the
air after the collision and perhaps even try to flap as it crashed. This
bird just dropped out of the air like it had just decided to stop flying.
It also was moving more or less parallel to the wires at the time it
happened. There are two wires, and the gulls wingspan could reach both of
them. But without a necropsy, who knows?

John Puschock
Wedgwood, Seattle
g_g_allin at hotmail.com
http://www.zbirdtours.com