All the news this week has been about the new James Bond movie but my nature watch concerns a real-live “Octopussy”.

A few years ago I was engaged in a study of the northern octopus which has the scientific name of elodone cirrhosa.

When I was asked to do this I thought I was off to some exotic climate. How wrong I was!

This species occurs all round the British Isles and for many years now its population has been increasing.

It became apparent that there were two reasons for this.

It could be due to the fact that our coastal waters are becoming warmer, but it seemed to me that as our rivers were being cleaned up the coastal waters were not being polluted by our flows.

I was invited to return to my research area to find that species such as the northern octopus were still increasing and I was shown lots of lovely photographs.

Do not think that this octopus is huge and a danger to human life and limb. They are seldom more than one foot long and recent studies have shown that they are very intelligent and have excellent eyesight.

Modern day researchers are becoming ever more skilful and it was a delight to talk to the clever young people involved in the project.

Natural science is certainly safe in their hands.

Act now to save our ash trees

A disease called dieback caused by a fungus has killed more than 80 per cent of the ash trees in Denmark and has now been found in East Anglia so its appearance is in the news at the moment.

We must hope that it can be contained and no doubt tree week which is in November will focus on this worrying threat to our ash trees.

What angers me most is that we have been importing trees into Britain from the continent despite some scientists issuing dire warnings.

Why don’t we raise British trees from British seeds? We are separated by the English Channel which can surely give us protection from diseases on the continent. The ash is an easy tree to identify because it is the only species in Britain to have black buds.

Amateurs can therefore help by keeping an eye on our ash trees to see if they are showing any signs of ill health.

The cold weather may help the spread as experts are hard at work cutting down and burning the diseased trees in East Anglia.

A few years ago our elm trees were almost wiped out by a similar fungal disease and are only just beginning to recover.

Let us hope it does not happen to the ash trees of Britain.

Birdseye view down by the river

At last — the week before the clocks went back we had a period of bright sunshine and blue sky even though it was a bit chilly.

I enjoyed three river watches — on the bridge at Brungerley over the Ribble, at the Roach Bridge over the River Darwen and at Devils Bridge at Kirkby Lonsdale over the River Lune.

Bridges are the perfect places to watch the autumn bird migrations.

Birds always find their way during flight along the river valleys.

On my three watches I was able to sit quietly and watch the comings and goings of the migrants.

On their way to Africa were the last of the swallows and the martins whilst on their way to join us for the winter were the thrushes such as the fieldfares and the redwings.

What comes as a surprise to many people is that in winter our blackbird population is increased substantially by migrants from the colder parts of northern Europe and the same applies to robins. Between now and the beginning of December wildfowl and waders will come into Britain in their thousands and during these months I will be exploring our local reservoirs and be paying several visits to the Lancashire coast.