Show Us your Mussels - Share what you find

Thank you for helping us shape this new project

Thanks for helping us discover locations where we can still find blue mussels around the Forth. We really appreciate your help! We believe that this is one of the first attempts to record location, density and changes to blue mussels in the UK, and therefore things may feel a little experimental. You are helping us shape how we do this, and we appreciate your support and patience.

Where and when to go searching

The best time to go out hunting is when the tide is at it’s lowest. Please walk along as close to low tide as you can safely do, looking for blue mussels, and record your findings here. We are interested in all possible places where blue mussels may be found. That includes sea defense walls, ropes etc. If you discover that you can’t get access to the shore within your square then please email us and we will give you the option of another square. Safety First always.

What we would like you to do

You will see below that there are different things we ask you to do on your first and then subsequent visits. The first visit focuses on identifying where blue mussels are across your square. After this initial visit, we are not asking you to revisit the full square every time. We want to track how things change in a select bed/ cluster / individual – whichever you choose from your square.

A Closer Look Reveals More

There’s more than meets the eye along the shoreline. If you’re exploring this area, don’t be afraid to pick up a few rocks—you might uncover hidden clumps of blue mussels just like the ones in this photo! These small surprises are easy to miss unless you’re really looking. Get curious and start turning things over—you never know what you’ll find.

Many of you are finding different ages including very tiny spat at some sites which is really encouraging. Spat so small can be found on barnacles and limpet covered rocks and may even require you to take a hand lens to find.

First Visit

On the first visit to your square please record each place you find clusters or beds of blue mussels. Given how blue mussel numbers are declining we do not expect there to be many of these.

If there are no clusters or beds in your square, please record locations of one or two individual live ones if there are some. If there are many individuals scattered then please note this in the additional info field.

If you only find dead shells please record one or two these.

If you find no evidence of blue mussels at all please email us to let us know and we will give you the option of another square.

When entering GPS coordinates please enter latitude and then longitude.
Click or drag files to this area to upload. You can upload up to 3 files.

Subsequent Visits

The first visit will have identified where there are blue mussels in your square, and their density (are there individuals, clusters or beds) 

For future monthly visits we are interested in how your findings change over the seasons.

Please select one accessible bed or cluster from your square and visit it monthly to record how it is changing, especially after storms etc.

For places where you only found individual mussels please just help with sizing the largest and smallest (see below). 

For this activity, please select one location in your square and measure the length of the largest and smallest mussel you can see (in cm). We don’t think it will be easy to identify an exact blue mussel (or name it!), but largest and smallest length will help us track trends.

When entering GPS coordinates please enter latitude and then longitude.

Track Project Progress by exploring our online map

Click the image below to go to our online map. There you’ll see we have linked in previous sightings of blue mussels from the nature tracking apps, iNaturalist and iRecord. You can tick to toggle them on and off. There is also a toggle for findings from this project – we’ll keep this updated as your records come in and you can see how the overall picture is building up. Good luck exploring, and a BIG THANK YOU for your help!

Please note that while we ask for name and email address, as with other projects, your email will not be publicly shared, or used for any other purpose.

If you’d like to keep in touch about all of our activities, then please subscribe.

For any questions about this project, contact:  charlotte@edinburghshoreline.org.uk