High above the ground, electrical and telephone poles and their connecting wires must seem to be made just for birds, like artificial trees with limbs that stretch on forever and ever. Sometimes a hundred birds or more will be stretched out along a wire, in a kind of high-tension convention.
As a child, I would look up at these birds, sitting there, all lined up on the wires, chatting.
I guess my sweet grandmother Maude, saw me gazing up at those birds and she told me what it was all about. Grandma's just know these things. The birds were attending prayer meeting and it is as simple as that.
I have never thought otherwise, after being told this fact by Grandma, bless her. Grandma just knew these sort of things.
When I told Russ that is really what they are doing up there, all lined up on the wires, he did look at me a little strange..But never mind. Prayer Meeting is definitely what it is all about.
My grandmother shared her sweet pearls of wisdom with me, all through my growing years, and for that I am eternally grateful. She never failed to have an answer for every question, even thought I was called the "Thousand What?" Kid.
I cannot help but smile when I see a flock of birds lined up , perched high in the sky and making lots of noise. Sometimes one is seemingly separated from the rest, he may be one or two wires higher than most..well that is the preacher bird, no doubt. Big Smile.
How come a bird on a wire doesn't get shocked?
But if a bird (or maybe line worker) accidentally touches an electrical "ground" while in contact with the high-voltage wire, that will complete an electrical circuit. A ground is a 'region' of just about zero voltage. The earth, and anything touching it that can conduct current, is, in essence, 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 little 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.
All that 'electrocution stuff ' never really entered my child's mind, back then. I was just interested in what the preacher bird was saying that kept them at such rapt attention.
I would lie on my back chewing on a blade of sweet grass, and contemplate it all.
Can't you just about smell that field of sweet grass growing?
Can't you see the lazy clouds on a summer afternoon, just floating on by?
Come with me and we will go to one of those outdoor 'prayer meetings'.
I still wonder what that preacher bird is saying...
