Neighborhood Watch

Arizona sky

My very favorite songbird is the Northern Mockingbird. These slender-bodied gray birds apparently pour all their color into their personalities. They sing almost endlessly, even sometimes all night, and they flagrantly harass birds that intrude on their territories, flying slowly around them or prancing toward them, legs extended, flaunting their bright white wing patches.

This is female fledgling Hooded Oriole. The immature female resembles adult female.

One of Michael Graves' first non-domestic commissions, this regional library is located across the street from the Mission of San Juan Capistrano and near the center of the old town.  In this small one-story building (about 12000 square feet) Graves borrows from the local Spanish idiom, using stucco walls, mission clay roof tiles, wooden beams, mini-towers, small punched windows, light monitors, stencil ornament, and loggias around a central courtyard.

Male Rufous Hummingbird

Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano behind public library. Library is by architect Michael Graves.