At the edge of the foaming sea, behind the spent waves on the beach, shapes materialize in the night. They are ancient shapes that have appeared countless times over millions of years. They slowly pulse towards the shore, their domed shells barely showing at the surface. Under a waning gibbous moon, scaly flippers strike the sand. Wrinkled necks emerge, stretching beaked heads with unblinking eyes to survey the beach. Like time travellers from some primeval epoch, a great wave of sea turtles has arrived on the land.

  • Mass nesting: Olive ridley sea turtles arrive to nest on the beaches along India’s East coast (Photo: Bivash Pandav).
  • Turtle tracks on the sand (Photo: Kartik Shanker).
  • Back to the sea (Photo: Kalyan Varma).
  • A sea turtle at her nest on the beach (Photo: Kalyan Varma).
  • Finishing touches (Photo: Kalyan Varma).
  • The inscrutable visage (Photo: Kalyan Varma).
  • Lights that illuminate and confuse (Photo: Kalyan Varma).
  • A hatchling emerges into the light (Photo: Kalyan Varma).
  • Hatchlings cluster against a flashlight (Photo: Bivash Pandav).
  • Turtles at a nesting beach (Photo: Bivash Pandav).

… This post first appeared in the NCF blog EcoLogic on 17 August 2012. Read more in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.