Cruising along the Seabed

Featured animal:   Olive Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea),

Photo credit: Own composition

Location: Rishikulya Beach, Odisha, India

Olive ridley turtles are best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed arribadas. Females return to the same beach from where they hatched to lay their eggs. The coast of Odisha in India is one of the largest mass nesting sites for the olive ridley.

They arrive every year in February to lay their eggs in a mass nesting event.  The location is the mouth of the Rishikulya beach where the Rishikulya river meets the Bay of Bengal.  To watch this is an unforgettable event as it happens in the night and one must use torch light to observe it.