Help with I.D please

[nicholi]

walking along my local river and i come across a whole pile of these and i mean a whole pile any who, would this be a sort of sign that there are otters in the river or has some just dumped loads of them. basically i have no clue so thought i would post on here for help. but on my way home i spotted my very first golden pheasant so i think im going to be tracking him down View attachment 14788View attachment 14789 (crappy phone pics sorry)

 

[Big Andy]

I don't know if otters eat them but they probably do, as they are fresh water mussel shells. They could also have been left by an angler as they use them for bait some times. Heron is another suspect also mink, and probably a few other culprits are possible.

 

[nicholi]

never knew we had fresh water mussels around here. it wont be fishermen because of the location it would be impossible to fish. some places you cant walk without sanding on them because there are so many. so could be all sorts of animals then?? i will have to go down more often to see what might be lurking around