Jane lives on the sea front in North Berwick with stunning views over the sea, east to the Bass Rock and West to the Edinburgh skyline. We looked out from her balcony as the sun set behind the Pentland hills at the recently revealed concrete line of the sewer usually covered by xxx feet of sand all washed away by Storm Ciaran. Jane has seen all this devastation before – as she says – ‘the sand comes and goes and it will come back in time…’ Her property was clearly designed for high water events as her back wall has drainage holes so if breached by the sea, the water can drain back out rather than forming a swimming pool. She has known North Berwick since she was brought here as a child for summer holidays and found she was captivated by the sea and finally moved here permanently 20...

Archie started fishing in 1952.  His great grandfather, grandfather and father were all fishermen as well as his son and grandson. So, fishing for the Johnstons is very much a family generational thing.   His grandfather, who he lived with, fished for oysters.  He remembers they were mostly sold to the French and Spaniards. The oyster beds started just west of Cockenzie harbour and went all the way to Newhaven. He believes they may have been killed by pollution. They sold them by the barrel and, to cheat the buyers, used add mud and shingle. There were also spats in the barrels, so the foreigners apparently took them too and used them to start their own oyster beds.   They only fished for them in October, as they knew they were seeding in the summer.   But when Archie started there were really only white fish and prawns left. And now...

Bill Simpson is the latest character in a series of interviews undertaken to get an insight into the lives of people who work on or even in the Firth of Forth. People who spend their lives on boats, diving, fishing or undertaking contract work, many of whom have incredible long term knowledge of the local marine environment. Bill and his crew were recently contracted by Restoration Forth to transport 30 oyster enthusiasts plus the first few thousand native oysters for release onto the sea bed during this 3 year 30,000 oyster project. Their enthusiasm for re-introducing oysters after over 100 years was as great as the participants. Karen Chambers and I stepped down the ramp onto MV Conserver, an 18-metre Hydrographic Survey Vessel, one of two boats operated by Seahunter Marine (https://www.seahunter-marine.co.uk/). We found Bill on board with his crew planning some repair work and sat in the cockpit for...

Leonie and Caitlin Godfrey met up with Mark Blyth to talk about his diving experience in the Firth of Forth and discuss potential oyster basket trail site areas. When I met Joe Terburgh – the razor clam diver – he mentioned his friend Mark Blyth who runs the Dive Bunker https://www.divebunker.co.uk/   at Burntisland in Fife and suggested speaking to him about his experience of diving in the Firth of Forth. Caitlin Godfrey who works for Marine Conservation Scotland on restoration of native oysters into the Firth of Forth as part of Restoration Forth (https://www.wwf.org.uk/scotland/restoration-forth )  came along and we were given a tour of the facilities at the Bunker while Mark talked about all the action on site including dive training, diving trips to explore wrecks and some of the best sites in the Firth of Forth plus a range of other services including wetsuit and equipment repairs, air cylinder...

Leonie, Esther Thomsen and Marie Seraphim had a recent outing to Aberlady Bay LNR where they had arranged to meet local resident Frank Neate.  Marie and Esther are both seagrass experts and part of the Restoration Forth project which aims to reintroduce oysters to the Firth of Forth and to augment and create new seagrass meadows. Frank has been researching nutrient input to the Bay from sewage treatment outfalls and we were curious to hear more about Frank’s research and to visit the seagrass beds to check on their condition. Aberlady Bay is an outstanding Local Nature Reserve, the first LNR in the UK to be designated in 1952 with sand dunes, salt marsh, intertidal sand and mud flats and of course seagrass beds. It has multiple designations being part of the Firth of Forth SSSI, the Firth of Forth Special Protection Area and is a Ramsar site. All in...

On Friday 5th May Leonie met up with Joe Terburgh to talk about his experience and observations as a diver and inshore fisherman in the Firth of Forth. We met at Port Seton harbour where he was cleaning out the boat engine which had become contaminated by what is referred to as diesel bug – microbes which live at the fuel/water interface where they live in the water and feed on the fuel. I was interested in Joe’s previous work as a razor shell fisherman – collecting razor clams by walking along the sea bed. He has done this at various sites across the Firth of Forth and has some great first-hand experience of what is going on down there. In order to identify promising areas he used to work with the eider ducks who know exactly where the razor shell beds are and they would join him on the...

Those in the Seafield and Portobello area might have noticed the council giving the grass at the top of Seafield Prom a haircut these past few days. Long-term followers will know this is a bit of grass that we’ve been working on with volunteers – adding in coastal wildflowers and scrub. The Dog and Cat Home are having some new signage put on their fence so the council have strimmed a wee strip in front of the fence to make sure the signage can be seen. The rest is being left for now. We know it’s a bit untidy looking at this time of year, but please bear with us, we promise it’s for a good reason – even now it’s vital to wildlife! Our Urban Biodviersity Leonie has designed a brilliant poster to let us know the benefits:

On Sunday afternoon we went out to North Berwick for a shorebird walk hosted by the Scottish Seabird Centre. Edinburgh residents got an opportunity to learn more about the shorebirds who call the Firth of Forth home. East Lothian still has lots of areas of rocky shore and mudflat in tact (far more than within the City of Edinburgh coastal area) which makes it a great home for our wintering wading birds, as well as sea ducks. As the Firth of Forth is a Special Protected Area for the huge numbers of overwintering birds it supports this is a very special time of year to head out with your binoculars. It was a beautiful, sunny, crisp afternoon and we managed to see Greater Black-backed Gull, Shag (or Cormorant – they were a bit too far away to ID!), a Heron, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Turnstone, Purple Sandpiper, male and female Eider ducks...

We had an excellent (if sometimes grey) morning with Dr Rebecca Yahr, Lichenologist, from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on Sunday. As you’ll know, the Edinburgh Shoreline project is run by the Botanics, so we’re lucky enough to work with Becky, but Sunday was all about unleashing her on the general public, and what a day it was! As well as researching lichens, Becky also works on public engagement. The Botanics wants everyone to know what special organisms lichens are: a symbiosis of a fungi and an algae. The algae produces the food for the organism through photosynthesis, and the fungi produces a protective sunscreen layer for the organism. Lichens like to live on rocks and bark, amongst other places, and they also prefer clean air. So, Becky took us on a walk to Cramond Island to find lichens. As the island is in the middle of the Forth, at...

As you might have heard, we’re now embarking on a joint project with the Scottish Seabird Centre, the City of Edinburgh Council, University of Edinburgh and University of Glasgow to improve habitats in the north of Edinburgh and along the East Lothian coast and Forth islands. You can find out more about it by visiting our blog post from June. Emily Burton is the new Volunteer Coordinator appointed to work on the Wild Line project on behalf of the Scottish Seabird Centre and will be leading teams of volunteers in invasive species removal in East Lothian. Hop over to the centre’s blog page to find out more, and how you can get involved.

Our project partners at the Scottish Seabird Centre are on the look out for volunteers to be involved with the Wild Line project. If you fancy getting hands-on removing invasive non-native plants from the East Lothian coast to improve habitats for seabirds then this is the opportunity for you! For more info contact volunteercoordinator@seabird.org    

On Thursday 10th October we visited the RSPB Skinflats reserve near Falkirk with 36 P7 pupils from Craigentinny Primary School. Reserve Warden Allison and volunteers Grant and Nicola hosted us for a great session exploring the different habitats found on the site and the birds and animals that call it home. First off, we looked at globes and maps to find out where Skinflats is on the Forth in relation to Edinburgh and Stirling. It’s a perfect place for birds with extensive mudflats, which are recently improved thanks to managed realignment on the site (see here for more detail). We then split into groups to do some fun activities: bug hunting with colourful nets, nature detectives exploring for signs of animals such as shelters and dens, nibbled nuts and conkers and tracks and prints (some say of dinosaurs, but I’m not sure!) and finally bird watching.Bird watching was very popular...

For anyone that has recently visited the City Chambers, you might have spied the community map we made earlier this year on display in the main foyer. Director of Place for the City of Edinburgh Council, Paul Lawrence, was kind enough to offer to have the map on display having seen it at our celebration event in March. Displaying the map in the City Chambers over the month of September has been a great way to engage more people with the project, and also get it noticed by more councillors and council staff. Over late 2018/early 2019 we met with community groups and local residents and asked them to consider what they cherish about living in a capital city with a coast, as well as sharing aspirations for the future. The message was clear: our coastline is a wonderful asset. It allows people to connect with nature and has benefits...

Edinburgh Shoreline staff and volunteers spent a very pleasant Saturday in the Brunstane Burn with the Forth Rivers Trust, learning to survey invertebrates. Many thanks to Amy and Jonathan for spending a Saturday with us. The Trust gave us an insight into some of the work that they do on the Almond and the Avon monitoring invertebrates (see here to find out more about their work). RiverFly monitoring involves monitoring the levels of 8 particular species of cased caddisfly larvae, caseless caddisfly larvae, mayfly larvae, stonefly larvae and freshwater shrimp. No Killer Shrimp, please! These are all key indicator species of water quality, and by monitoring the numbers found in a particular river you can get an idea of the health of the water. You can find out more about the project here. After learning about the project and studying invertebrate ID guides, it was time to get in the...

Many thanks to our super colleague Martine Borge, the Scottish Native Plant Horticulturist here at the Botanics, for hosting a group of residents from Wardie Bay Resident Association today. We had a really interesting visit to the Nursery and learned about collecting and growing Scottish Native wildflowers from seed. First off, we had a special behind-the-scenes tour of the polytunnels at the nursery, and heard about Martine’s work to protect and conserve rare Scottish plants. We particularly enjoyed hearing about RBGEs work growing and researching alpine blue sow thistle, cicerbita aplina. You can read more here. The group were also interested to see some Arran whitebeams, sorbus arranensis, grown at RBGE which are soon to be planted at Wardie Bay along the new cycle path installed by the City of Edinburgh Council. Inside the polytunnel at the nursery. Cicerbita alpina is in the foreground and sorbus in the background. Then, we...