House Martin Nesting House, Lausen Live Cam

This camera looks up at the underside of a house martin nesting house in Lausen, a village beside Liestal in the canton of Basel-Landschaft. Round artificial nests line the edges of the roof and a central board, with sky around the rim of the wide-angle picture.

Lausen lies on the river Ergolz, just upstream of the cantonal capital Liestal. The village has a large colony of house martins and swifts, with nesting houses for the martins on a meadow by Wolfgasse and behind the Grammel school. House martins build closed mud nests under eaves, and ready-made nests help them where such sites are scarce.

Because the lens points straight up, birds flying in to the nests are seen from underneath. The martins winter in Africa and are here from spring to early autumn, and a caption with the date and time sits near the bottom of the frame.