Thrice Three- The End of the Beginning

Thrice Three: The End of the Beginning This painting is 56’ long and 5 to 10’ tall.  It is really big and complicated.   Southern California has two seasons.  One could be called Dry Heat.  It runs from late March to the end of October.  The other could be called...

Lady’s Choice

I was trailing 29 on a huge loop through his home range. Three days into the assignment I had seen the life of an alpha male tortoise at the height of the mating season- a search for sex made with the expectation of combat. In the search for love male tortoises follow...
Trust Game

Trust Game

Lizard scuttle and croak of raven, faint perfume of desert wildflowers, kiss of gentle sun: I stroll through a magical Mojave morning. This desert, always fickle, has decided to smile on me. Instead of the vicious, forty mile-an-hour westerlies of early spring, I am...

Night School

The universe is really big but most of us never get to appreciate its size because we aren’t directly exposed to it.  One of the great subtle blessings of my life as a tortoises biologist has been the chance to lay under the stars and planets and galaxies and...

Transforming Reality Talk Show

Mon, 9 January 2012 WISDOM OF THE DESERT TORTOISE (What We Can Learn from Ancient Life Forms) with Tim Shields. The Desert Tortoise of the American Southwest is a species that has lived on our planet far longer than humankind. Learn about these ancient, wise beings,...