The pre-season recce walk
Six of us walked the stretch on a Sunday morning to log new lights, new walls and newly hardened sand before the December season.
Neelankarai to Panaiyur
Stories
Field notes
A record from the people on the sand, including nights when nothing turned up.
Latest first
Entries
What a nesting night looks like
A walk is about four hours, mostly quiet, and often finds nothing. Read this before you sign up.
Why we tackle lights before plastic
Plastic is a real problem, but on this coast lighting kills more hatchlings. Here is why we start with lights.
Night entries start with the season
Night-by-night entries run from December to March.
The format
What goes in a night entry
- Date and beach
- The named stretch, not just "Chennai".
- Who was out
- Volunteers and participants who checked in.
- Conditions
- Tide, moon, wind, and beach lighting.
- What was found
- Tracks, nests, hatchlings, or nothing. Nothing is a common result and is recorded.
- What went wrong
- Late starts, noisy groups, lights left on, events we stopped.
- Nest locations
- Never published. Nests reported to the Forest Department are named by beach only.
Reported by the public
The sightings log
What the public reports through report a turtle: stranded animals, entanglements and nests. Published as a monthly count by category and beach, with no reporter details and no precise nest locations.
Off season
Between March and December nothing nests here. Cleanups, school sessions, the season report and work on beachfront lighting continue, and are written up here too.