What Do You Think Lightning Will Do To Your Birdhouse ????

Last few days after talking to a birdhouse owner in Klang I become a bit obsessed with lightning and what it will do to your birdhouse.

In my mind I look at it as a bad thing that will totally destroyed the birds colony and all those birds will be thrown dead on the floor. I cannot imagine what will happen after that. Will my birdhouse be untenanted? Will there be a fresh flock of birds coming back? Will the smell of all those dead birds keep the new one from coming? For how long?

What happen to my sound system, those digital timers, the CCTV system, the tweeters and so forth?

Then again what do you think will happen those areas that were directly hit by the lightning? Will they be broken into pieces?

I just could not imagine the total outcome of it but what I did was to go deeper and try to understand what is lightning and how can I protect my valuable birdhouse !!!

This was what I got:

What Is Lightning???

Lightning comes from thunderclouds, known as cumulonimbus, which are created when hot moist air rises into the atmosphere and condenses. Hot air rises when heated by the sun, carrying water vapor into the sky. As it rises, the hot air mingles with colder air, and the moisture condenses into water droplets. Clouds are created when these water droplets become visible. The droplets increase in size as the cloud grows and eventually become so heavy that they fall as rain. Thunderclouds are large, anvil-shaped masses that can stretch miles across at the base, and reach 40,000 feet or more into the atmosphere.

The genesis of lightning is a subject of great theoretical debate, says Dr. Vladimir Rakov of the Lightning Research Center at the University of Florida. We know that electrical charges build up within thunderclouds, but there is no single theory that fully describes why. One commonly discussed thesis suggests that small cloud particles acquire a positive charge, while other larger particles become negatively charged. These particles eventually separate, and the upper part of the cloud becomes positively charged, while the lower part becomes negatively charged.

The attraction, or electrical potential, between the positive and negative charges eventually grows strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow. Racing toward each other, the charges connect, completing an electrical circuit, and discharging the accumulated electricity as lightning. Cloud-to-cloud lightning is the most common form of electrical discharge. Only about one-third of all discharges are cloud-to-ground. Bolts that shoot from cloud-to-air, known as "bolts from the blue," are even less common, but can strike up to 10 miles away.

When the current is discharged, it is accompanied by a flash containing millions of volts of electricity. This is a huge amount of energy, and the surrounding air is heated up to 54,000° Fahrenheit, five times hotter than the surface temperature of the Sun. The rapidly expanding heated air also produces tremendous shock waves, which become audible as the sound of thunder.

(This world map shows the distribution of lightning around the planet. Click to enlarge and See Malaysia)

They number of strike is pretty high ....... Hmm hmm hmmmm....

Found at: http://www.thirteen.org/savageplanet/03deadlyskies/01lforms/indexmid.html

In view of it intensity and heat generated, the damage resulted are great. Let us look at a few pictures that describe its effects:


A tree is totally destroyed leaving a dead trunk with its branches thrown as far as 50 meters away.

This second picture shows a minor damage on a tall tree. Will the tree survive? Normally it will unless the roots are totally burned giving the tree no chance of functioning to absorb those essential nutrients from the ground.


Damages to life stock are unavoidable. See these dead cows found in Europe after a serious thunderstorm. All slump to the ground with very little chance to survive.



Can you imagine what it will do to your swiftlets?

Well you might say that they are protected by the enclosure but there is no proof that they are not affected?

See how a concrete slab is torn away from the wall of a building?



The good news is that there are ready made tools that you can prevent your birdhouse from becoming a torched house. I know that there are many new technologies available and it is up to you to consider to use or not to use.

I remember playing golf the other day at KLGCC (Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club), just one lightning strike the siren will stop our game until the lightning are at least 30 kilometers away. I ask them how do they know that? Their answer is, we have a sophisticated software system with a couple of antennas installed around the golf course to tell us where there are.

Hmm hmmm another new thing that I learned everyday ........