As heard on the Howard Stern show (well, maybe not the most rigorous news source), Western Australian reports an outage of around a thousand customers caused by a pair of kookaburras engaged in the reproductive act. No mention of what town. Seems the female extended her wings, touching across the high voltage distribution lines. Linesmen found the zapped dead birds on the ground.

Flamin galahs 😬

I was witness to a sort of similar situation a good 30 years or so ago. A magpie had along strip of silver foil insulation in its beak that it was no doubt taking to its nest to get it to the 5 star home rating. Unfortunately it dropped it on the three phase mains just outside where I was working at the time and killed the power to half the suburb. The noise of the wires was amazing just before the mains tripped out.

Possums on the other hand don't cause such problems. Where I lived many years ago I had a regular possum that would land on our roof and scamper onto the mains cable going to the house to cross the street. It would then grab onto the first wire and then swing onto the second wire of the overhead mains and hang there being given a good old jolt. Eventually it would fall off onto the concrete footpath and I swear it was smoking, give itself a good shake and just scamper off. Probably good that it wasn't 11kv like it was at work. I still can't believe that it did that on an almost regular basis.

Fauna is a constant problem.

Being rural: Possums are a problem & they make a spectacular flash 22kV at night. Often see crispy ones hanging from wires.

Galah's & Cockatoos like showing of the the female & often treat power cables like a "pole dancer" and chop sheathed cable to bits. One came to grief recently chomping an insulator. Took quite a chunk out of it.

Termites do love some power poles.

Eagles in the outback think they are a nesting tree

Magpies have a variety of interesting fatal ideas. I have a photo of one lot nesting on a 3 phase switch box, in among the 22kV wiring.

When I was an apprentice, one of my jobs early on was to remove a 'bag of bones' from the bus bars in one of the substations at Gladesville Hospital. The bag was once a cat, which sneaked in for the warmth from the switch room and he/she took one step too many when selecting a place to sleep. It stank the room out and I had to wait for the smoke to clear from the room (fortunately it had two doors) before we could get in to survey the damage.

Since then I've lost count of the number of bats and possums who have welded their feet to street distributors and have subsequently remained suspended in the same spot for up to a year.

The best "what the hell was that" moment" here was on the verandah of the old house on this site (70's). Newly weds were in a caravan here whilst their house was being built. Caravan's mains wire utilised a 20 foot high pear tree as a power pole.

Around 2AM something shot across the roof with a noise like a freight train. Big issue... and a hell of a lot of luck from the rubber mat at the van door: All that the van had was mains Active.

So on inspection one dead possum 20 feet from the chomp mark in the cable. That roof was well earthed via the copper pipe feeding the hot water.

Oh! Ants also like power boxes, GPO boxes and the old Bakelite switches.

For some reason, ants like GPOs even when they are not in use. I do not understand why, unless the tingling sensation of a thousand of them in series with A and N ramps up their sex drive or something. I replaced one at a mate's place two years ago. Removed old GPO, sprayed remaining ants dead - came back half an hour later with the garden hose and a drill with a 20mm speed borer. Drilled a few drains in the bottom plate and then hosed out the ant carcasses. Let dry for a further time before jamming some silicon in the hole, treating with more surface spray and installing a new GPO.

I had a problem with the pressure switch on a household water pump. Ants filling it until. It wouldn’t work. A plumber mate cleaned them out, he reckons they like the ozone produced around the contacts

Snakes sometimes get into electrical boxes (usually through an open knockout hole) and crawl around until they find some exposed high voltage. Like in circuit breaker boxes or kilowatt/hour housings. Sometimes they fry without drawing enough current to trip the circuit out. Kinda like the old hot dog cookers sold in the USA 50 years ago. The hot dogs became the heating elements.

Must have had a good interlock switch to remove mains when the cover was opened!!
Otherwise the hotdogs really would be bad for your health.

There are pro's & cons with snakes, Mrs Black ( 6' & poisonous) set up shop in the wall here (cavity in the insulation). While she was here she usually waited near the door if she got locked out. Nest was 6 feet from my feet & path past my feet 3 feet: So one had to be careful as to where they put 2 feet.

How unusual that a mouse was never seen.

I get lots of snakes here where I live ...if it's a Red bellies I let them stay here as it keeps the browns away, if you have ever seen a Red bellies in a fight with a brown snake the red bellies win. Not because they are more venomous it's because of their Fangs which are much larger than a brown and so the brown of course is a very deadly snake and will kill you in a very short amount of time, so I choose the Red bellies can stay here instead.
I'm use to snakes because when I was a boy I lived along the snowy River and Tiger Snakes , browns ,Red bellies were a daily sight when I was a boy.
But now I have a little girl who is only 4 so snakes are worry about the yard as she is only little.
I keep double bandages in the kitchen draw just in case...the red bellies let a brown in the yard.
Do I kill them? Only if it was a brown or Tiger..........pete

Quote: "I lived along the snowy River"

Cool. In Vic? near what town?