Sarah L. Fossheim Wildlife & Nature

Hi! I'm Sarah Fossheim, a bird nerd, wildlife photographer, nature enthusiast, dataviz accessibility specialist, writer, and educator located in Norway.

I'm passionate about ornithology, biology, and nature conservation, and am always interested in learning something new.

Photography is more than just a creative outlet for me, I also use it to learn and educate about the behavior, history, threats, and ecology of different species, and to share my love for the beauty of nature.

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Black-legged kittiwake preparing for landing on the kittiwake hotel. The kittiwake is positioned directly above the camera, against a light bright blue sky, white wings spread out, black legs sticking out for landing, and beak wide open while shouting at their partner on the nest. Portrait of a puffin, sitting in outside of its burrow, overlooking a bright aqua sea full of bokeh, photographed from the side. It's a really bright and sunny day, and the picture has light and vibrant colors, with a lot of feather detail. Two razorbills cuddling together in the snow, with a bright aqua sea in the background. The background is out of focus with a lot of bokeh, and the snow in the foreground creates a white haze. The razorbills are small black and white auks, and have a white vertical and horizontal line on their beak.

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Species

Explore photographs, blog posts, and information about the species I've encountered.

Collections

Albums of photos and blog posts about various themes, travels, bird behaviors, projects, and more.

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Highlighted species

Common Murre

Uria aalge

Common murres, also known as common guillemots, are a member of the auk family. Like most auks, they spend most of their life at sea, coming only to land to breed on tightly populated cliffs along the shoreline.

They live in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and here in Norway they're found on bird cliffs from Runde on the west coast until Hornøya in the north.

Common murres and thick-billed murres are some of my all-time favorite birds.

Species info

Telezoom portrait of two common murres cuddling and preening eachother, with murres blurred out in the foreground and background

Highlighted species

Black-legged Kittiwake

Rissa tridactyla

Kittiwakes are a small type of gull, easy to recognize visually because of their black feet, and audibly because of their 'kittiwake' call.

They're an endangered species in Norway, having seen a 70% reduction in population size the last 3 generations (30 years).

Species info

Portrait of a black-legged kittiwake, photographed from the chest upwards. The kittiwake is standing on the right side of the picture, looking towards the left, and the colors are a very cool aqua blue with contrasting yellow sunlight. The kittiwake has a white head, black eyes with a red ring around it, and a short bright yellow beak.
Black-legged kittiwake sitting on top of wood boxes, looking down at the camera shouting, exposing the bright red inside of the beak.

Recent blog posts

Plumage and gender roles of the red-necked phalaropes

5. February 2025

While male birds are typically the more colorful ones, red-necked phalaropes have reversed gender roles, and the males look a bit duller than the females.

Gloria, our neighboring herring gull, received a ring.

22. January 2025

Gloria, one of our neighborhood gulls, recently showed up on our balcony wearing a color ring, which gives us access to some more info about their life.

About the beautiful bridled common murres.

3. September 2024

Common murres come in two visual variations. Bridled individuals are less common, and a have white "glasses" around the eyes.

The parental roles of purple sandpipers.

29. August 2024

Purple sandpipers are monogamous, male and female share the egg incubation, but hatching the male is the only one taking care of the chicks.

All blog posts

Highlighted collection

Gulliver & Josefine

Gulliver and Josefine are a couple of adult european herring gulls living in the center of Oslo. Thanks to her ring data we know Josefine is at least 13 years old, and has been living in the same neighborhood most of her life.

She and her partner Gulliver were living on the neighbor's chimney until 2023, when they decided to move to our balcony, and I've been following their life since.

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Portrait of an adult herring gull in winter plumage, zoonmed in on her face. She has a lot of brown/gray stripes, which makes her face look kind of dark. Her beak is on the small side for a herring gull, and has a faded orange/yellow color. Her eyes are yellow, with few very specks on the iris. In front of her is a larger herring gull, completely out of focus. The background are out of focus buildings, creating a blurry gradient.
Close-up (zoomed in and cropped) of the eye and part of the head of an adult european herring gull in winter plumage (white head with brown/gray stripes). Her iris is yellow/light green, with a black pupil that reflects the sunlight and 3-4 tiny barely noticeable black specks on the iris. Around the eye there's an orange circle, out of which tiny white feathers grow, almost like white eyelashes.

Highlighted collection

Finnmark

Pictures taken in Finnmark, the most northern region of mainland Norway.

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White-tailed eagle sitting on a rock, in front of other rocks. The rocks are covered in moss, and cast a blue-ish shadow in the background. The eagle has a white tail, huge yellow beak, and big white claws. The body is brown, and has white spots on the face.
Wooden shed that's falling apart, by a lake surrounded by green grass, and the fjord in the background. The mountains and sky in the background are different shades of blue. The foreground consists of different greens and oranges in the grass.

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