What in blue blazes are bird streamer flashovers?
A. Scientists call an unintended electrical discharge — an accidental zap — from one thing to another a flashover. And they call a super-long stream of fluid white bird poop — shot out by a great big meat-eater like a hawk — a bird streamer. Put the two together and it makes a rare, freaky thing. It makes a bird streamer flashover. How it can happen: A hawk lands on a power-line pole. Sooner or later nature calls. A streamer … streams. It streams all the way from the hawk on the pole to a power-line insulator 10 feet below. (Whoa!) (Insulators help hold up power lines. They don’t conduct electricity.) The insulator — splat! — gets shorted out. The streamer acts like a new extra wire. It links the line to the pole for a second. Electricity flashes across it, p-zap! Sometimes this causes a blackout. Sometimes it kills the bird. Weird either way but thankfully rare! Twig P.S. Some power companies install special bird guards to help stop bird streamer flashovers. Notes: Learn about as mu
