Falcon Nest Box, Josefstrasse Chimney, Zurich Live Cam

This camera looks inside the falcon nest box on the tall chimney of the old Josefstrasse waste incineration plant in Zurich. Its gravel floor, strewn with feathers and small prey bones, runs up to the bright entrance of the box.

The chimney, about 90 metres high, rises beside the Josefwiese park in Zurich's District 5. It belonged to Switzerland's oldest waste incineration plant, which was shut down in 2021. Almost every year since 1998, kestrels or peregrine falcons have raised young in this box, and the current pair are peregrines.

The camera is fixed high at the back of the box and looks down across the floor to the entrance. Peregrines lay their eggs in a bare scrape in the gravel from mid-March, so the chicks are seen at close range in spring. In autumn and winter the box often stands empty, and after dark the picture turns black and white.