Turtle nesting season in Sri Lanka, when and where

Sea turtles nest in Sri Lanka in every month of the year, with more nests in the first half of the year. On the south coast the best known nesting beach is Rekawa, near Tangalle, and turtles also climb smaller, quieter beaches, ours at Turtle Beach among them.

When do turtles nest in Sri Lanka?

All year. That is what the wildlife department's counts show, and what researchers write. There is no month when the beaches are empty.

Inside the year there are busier months, and here the sources do not agree exactly. One research paper on Sri Lanka's turtles names March to May as the nesting season, with April as the peak. Guides to Rekawa give wider windows, some from January, some to July. The careful answer is: any month is possible, and the first half of the year is busier.

No date can be promised. A turtle that has laid may come back later in the season for another nest, or the beach may stay quiet for a week.

Where do they nest on the south coast?

• Rekawa, near Tangalle. A protected sanctuary and the best known nesting beach on this coast. In the wildlife department's figures for 2020 to 2022, nearly all the turtles that came ashore there were green turtles. A local conservation project takes visitors to the beach at night, from about 8 PM. Only red light is used, and nothing is promised. Ask them directly whether the night watch is running when you are here.
• Bundala, further east. A national park where the olive ridley is the turtle that nests most.
• Small beaches in between. Turtles do not read maps. They also nest on short, quiet beaches along this coast, wherever the sand is dark at night and easy to climb.

Turtles often come up our beach at Ohana to lay their eggs. It is one reason the bay is called Turtle Beach.

What happens on a nesting night?

Almost always it happens in the dark. A female comes out of the water and waits at the edge. If something worries her, a light or a person walking, she may turn around and go back to the sea without laying.

If the beach is quiet, she pulls herself up the sand, above the line of the high tide. This is hard work. An animal made for swimming is carrying its whole weight on land.

Then she digs. With her back flippers she makes a hole, and she lays her eggs in it. A nest holds around a hundred eggs, more or fewer by the kind of turtle. The eggs are round, with a soft shell. She covers them, presses the sand down, and goes back to the sea. She will never see them again. In one season she may nest several times.

The warm sand does the rest, for about seven to nine weeks. The heat of the sand also decides the sex of the young. Warmer nests give more females, cooler nests more males.

The hatchlings usually come out at night. They walk towards the brightest horizon, which on a dark beach is the sea. Very few will grow old. One conservation group puts it at one egg in a thousand, or even one in ten thousand. That is why every nest counts.

How does a beach help a nesting turtle?

A turtle asks little of a beach, but she asks it firmly.

• Darkness. Lights that shine on the sand keep females away, and they send hatchlings the wrong way, inland instead of to the water. Beaches that look after turtles shade their lamps, point them down, or turn them off.
• Clean sand. Litter and plastic get in the way of a turtle, and of the hatchlings after her.
• A clear path. Chairs and sunbeds left near the water at night are walls to a turtle. So are deep holes and sandcastles. Even footprints slow a hatchling down.
• A gentle slope. A turtle climbs a gentle beach more easily than a steep one.
• Quiet. Noise and movement at the water's edge can send her back.

At Ohana we keep our stretch of sand clean, tidy and as gentle a slope as the sea allows, so that a turtle can climb it easily. On nesting nights we turn our lights off and move the sunbeds back, away from the water's edge.

Next to us, Gayan keeps a turtle protection centre. He collects the eggs laid in the area so that nobody takes them to sell or to eat, and lets them hatch in a clean, protected place. The rest of that story is in turtle hatchlings in Dikwella.

What should you do if you meet a turtle on the beach at night?

The Olive Ridley Project publishes a code of conduct for nesting beaches. In short:

• Stop and keep back. Stay at least 10 metres away while she is climbing or digging. Crouch low and keep still.
• Lights off. No torch, no phone light, no flash. Red light only, and never in her eyes.
• Stay behind her. If she sees you, she may leave without laying. Only once she is laying may you come nearer, from behind, and still no closer than about 2 metres.
• Stay quiet.
• Never touch her or the eggs. Sea turtles and their eggs are protected by law in Sri Lanka.
• With hatchlings: watch your step, do not pick them up, do not put them in a bucket, and let them walk to the sea by themselves.

Then tell the people who look after that beach. At Ohana, tell us.

There is more about the bay, the reef and how to swim with turtles at Turtle Beach on our turtles page.

Good to know

• Ohana is at Turtle Beach, Dikwella, less than five minutes by road from Hiriketiya.
• Turtles often come up our beach to lay their eggs. Nobody can say on which night.
• With some luck a release of hatchlings happens at Ohana or beside it, between our two palms, between 17:00 and 19:00. It cannot be promised or booked.
• At a release nobody touches or lifts a hatchling, nobody uses flash, and nobody stands between the hatchlings and the water.
• We are open every day from 08:00 to 21:00. Dinner is served until 21:00.