Our feathery friends and electric power equipment obviously do not mix. Power lines need to be kept safe from birds, and birds also need to be kept safe from power lines. The field of wildlife mitigation is full of solutions to the problem of animals, including birds, impacting power delivery equipment with their activities.
Nesting, hunting, flying, perching, and yes even excreting waste (a “streamer,” I learned this year, is a seemingly widely used industry term for jets of bird poo) are all natural bird pastimes that, when they occur at the wrong place and the wrong time, can be deadly to the bird and a hazard to the power grid as well as the humans who rely on it.
Some solutions attempt to deter birds or deny them access to sensitive and critical equipment. Others purposefully divert birds away from transmission and distribution hardware by giving them a safer place to carry out their bird business — as is the case with many utilities that build nesting platforms for birds.
Here is some photo art from stories T&D World has run this year on how to keep the power grid and birds of all types at a healthy distance from one another.