Snowy owl in the garden!

Although theoretically we live in its winter range, I'm not sure if snowy owls (Bubo scandiacus, harfang des neiges) live in Toronto any more. (Apparently there are some owls here though, check out these sweet photos of owls in Toronto by Jean Iron.)

Nicky and I took advantage of the recent "extreme" snowstorm here in Toronto (which would have been considered perfectly ordinary February weather where I grew up in the Ottawa Valley) to create this snow scupture (obviously we weren't looking at an image of a real snowy owl when we did it!). The coloured parts were done with Wilton Icing Colors in Lemon Yellow, Black, and mixture of Lemon Yellow and Christmas Red, available at Bulk Barn. I don't know if I'll try adding colour to a snow sculpture again; the colour kept bleeding, and I kept having to scoop out areas and replace them with fresh snow.

Here's a nostalgia-inducing video about the snowy owl from the Canadian Wildlife Federation's classic Hinterland Who's Who series of PSAs. (Regular readers, I'm sorry I've been away from the blog so long. My fibromyalgia flared up in early autumn and for a while I forgot that I even had a garden, never mind a garden blog! And of course although this blog is supposed to be about gardening all year round, winter is not really prime gardening time in Toronto. But I'm feeling better now and have a whole backlog of photos to post, and there are exciting things coming up in terms of garlic mustard eradication in High Park later this year!)