By Teresa L. Thome, @thomeplay

I am a part-time Californian. I have a loving husband and home in Michigan. In 2015, I drove out to LA to pursue a part-time creative life. I’ve dabbled in birding since I was 18, but my time in California, with access to so many birds has put that passion into overdrive.

And the one place that I keep going back to—the place that has my heart, is Franklin Canyon. It’s beautiful. It provides several different habitats. There’s nary a person there early in the morning. And, it inspires my love of old Hollywood.

I love knowing that I can see a Pie-billed Grebe, a Green Heron and the occasional Double-crested Cormorant where “The Andy Griffith Show” opening was filmed. Or that the road where I see House Finches and Towhees and hear Wrens and Wrentits is the same road that John Boy drove while filming “The Waltons”. I love that I saw my first Red-shafted Northern Flicker where Frank Capra once directed Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night.” “On Golden Pond”, “The Brady Bunch”, “Lassie,” “That Girl!” were all filmed in the same place I regularly see Wood Ducks and Mallards swimming, Red-tailed Hawks and Turkey Vultures soaring and Anna’s Hummingbirds and Black Phoebes darting about.

It’s not always idyllic, though. I nearly lost my mind when I arrived once to find the entire set of “American Horror Story” had sprung up. I saw caution tape near a Cooper’s Hawk nest and almost cried. The Parks Department assured me that they had put the tape up to protect the nest. Phew! They were on it.

I had to laugh when a security guard for the show, confusing me for paparazzi, told me I wasn’t allowed to take photos. “Sorry, but I’m a birder,” I said with a wee bit of attitude. “When I see a perched Common Yellowthroat, I’m going to have to take a picture.” I gave another security guard my bins to see an Acorn Woodpecker in the tree above him. He got a kick out of it and I got a kick out of him. I was delighted to learn the production company planted trees after the entire set was removed. My last visit I couldn’t count the number of Oak Titmouse, American Robins and Yellow-rumped Warblers.

Because of Coronavirus, I am in Michigan for the foreseeable future. It’s good. I need to be here. It makes me wonder, though, if I should give up this two-city life. But then I think about all the birds I see in Los Angeles, all the hotspots, my beloved Franklin Canyon, and I wonder if my heart could handle not having regular access to such a variety of fine, feathered friends.

Los Angeles is the place for creatives to fulfill dreams and for birders to add to their life lists. The desire to pursue artistic endeavors brought me to LA, but the unquenchable thirst for spotting and identifying birds keeps me there.