A Cochrane woman’s lifelong hobby is gaining attention in the Foothills.
Wildlife photographer Maureen Hills-Urbat spends almost every day capturing wildlife and birds with her Nikon - the images of which have become a focal point in the Sheep River Library with her current exhibit Local Birds Through My Lens and her first exhibit two years ago showcased her moving black and white photography.
Hills-Urbat said she’s been captivated by the area’s wildlife and birds since she was a child.
“My dad was an avid naturalist so I grew up going out and looking for wildlife and birds,” she said. “Both my parents did a lot of photography and they got me into it when I was young. It was just something I’ve pursued ever since.”
Hills-Urbat and her husband Rick Urbat head into the outdoors almost daily to bird watch in and around their 60-acre home northwest of Cochrane. The couple also frequents places like Frank Lake, which boasts an abundance of shore birds.
“There’s a pretty diverse habitat around here so pretty much all of the pictures are taken right at home,” she said. “We’re nestled on the very eastern edge of the Foothills so we’re in a spruce aspen forest but we have some open areas, a creek and a dugout. We have a ton of wildlife here.”
Local Birds Through My Lens went up in the gallery a week before the Sheep River Library was forced to close its doors temporarily in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the library re-opened earlier this month, the photographs remained on exhibit and will do so until the end of August.
“I’ve been shooting birds for about three or four years pretty consistently now so I have a good body of work that I’ve built up,” she said. “Throughout the years we’ve found areas where there’s lots of birds. We go out to the same places time after time and get to know where to find the birds and the best times for light and it’s just luck from there.”
Hills-Urbat captures humming birds, sparrows, chickadees, bluebirds, red-tail hawks, bald eagles and an abundance of owls.
“If you can find an owl they’re often easiest to capture because they’re bigger and don’t fly away,” she said. “The little birds are really hard because they never sit still. They’re not really the most co-operative subjects.”
When the weather is co-operative, Hills-Urbat spends hours birding and snapping shots. Even in the winter she’s capturing snowy owls, rough-legged hawks and northern shrikes.
“There’s something really therapeutic about pressing the shutter button,” she said. “It takes a lot of concentration so you forget what else is going on in your life. It’s a way to be creative for me, just finding birds with nice backgrounds and composition.”
The shots are done using a raw format before Hills-Urbat tweaks the images to recreate what she saw.
Her wildlife photography boasts deer, moose, elk, antelope and badgers has been featured at the Lougheed House and Mount Royal University and artsPlace in Canmore. She’s been exhibiting and selling her photographs for more than a decade.
“I just do it for fun,” she said. “If I get sales and exhibits that’s great. It’s always nice to have my work out there.”
To view more of Maureen Hills-Urbat’s photography visit https://maureenhillsphoto.com/
