Northeast Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests

Autumn Ladies' Tresses were recorded flowering on 2026-10-04 and 2026-10-07 across L'Esquirol, Vidrà, and Campdevànol. This terrestrial orchid is in its peak late-season bloom window; the species flowers from August through October in Mediterranean regions, making early October sightings routine for the season.

Willow Warblers were recorded in the region on 2026-09-19 at Manlleu and on 2026-09-17 near Besalú. These small warblers breed in northern Europe and winter in sub-Saharan Africa, passing through the Mediterranean in autumn primarily during August, September and October. Their presence in mid-to-late September marks the core of their autumnal migration window through Mediterranean forests, where they pause to refuel on insects before continuing to Africa.

Fox Moths were observed on 2026-10-05 near Les Planes d'Hostoles and on 2026-10-03 in Vallfogona de Ripollès, extending into early October. The second generation flies from mid-August through early October, providing forage insects during the peak period of autumn migration through Mediterranean forests.

A Rook was recorded on 2026-10-05 at Hospital Universitari de Vic and is listed as threatened. Rooks are very local in Mediterranean regions of Europe; the Spanish breeding population is restricted to a few colonies, making this observation noteworthy given the species' vulnerable status in European populations.

Box tree moths are on the wing across the Garrotxa this month. Sightings from late August into early September came from Olot, Riudaura, Castellfollit de la Roca, Vallfogona de Ripollès and the villages of the Vall d'en Bas. These are second-generation adults. The first generation flew in early summer; this one emerges from mid-August and stays out until early October. The adult (Cydalima perspectalis) has a wingspan of about four centimetres. Most are white with a wide brown border around the wings and a small white crescent on the leading edge of the forewing. Roughly one in ten is mostly brown with white streaks, and that form can pass for a different species altogether. On either form, the crescent and a box bush nearby are the tell. The caterpillar is green with black stripes and a shiny black head, up to four centimetres long, and feeds inside loose white webbing laced with droppings among the box leaves. Inside a shrub the first sign is usually missing leaves and that webbing. The moth passes the winter as a small caterpillar sealed between two box leaves stitched together with silk, wakes in March, and feeds until it pupates in late April or May. The host is what makes this matter here. Common box is native in these valleys. It grows thick under beech, oak and yew on the shallow soils of steep limestone slopes, the ground where the bigger trees themselves cannot hold, and it covers about 30 percent of the forest area in Catalonia. Charcoal from archaeological layers across La Garrotxa shows deciduous oak and box as the two most important woody plants in every period of the Holocene. Box has been part of these woods for as long as there have been woods. The moth is an East Asian species introduced to Europe, and its caterpillars strip box bare. One defoliation is survivable; box resprouts. Repeated defoliation, together with the caterpillars' habit of gnawing bark once the leaves are gone, kills the plant. A life-cycle study of this moth carried out in La Garrotxa itself describes complete defoliation of box shrubs and calls the ecological consequences unassessed. Birds take few of the caterpillars, which store toxic alkaloids drawn from the box leaves; Great Spotted Cuckoos have been watched picking them off box branches in southern Catalonia in spring, but that cuckoo is thin on the ground and the feeding was recorded only in the spring generation. Where box dies standing, dead shrubs change the fuel in the understory, in both quantity and continuity. A model of southern Pyrenees box stands under moth, drought and fire pressure projects box mortality and burning rising as the climate warms, with the worst of it below 800 metres. Olot and Riudaura, where most of this month's moths were logged, sit below that line. Fire danger around the valleys is quiet right now, with no thermal detections nearby in the past several days.

A signal crayfish was recorded in the Ter at Sant Joan de les Abadesses on August 5, in the middle of town where the old bridge crosses the river. The following day three white-clawed crayfish were logged at the same point, a few metres away. Signal crayfish had already been seen lower down the valley this year, at Ribamala a day earlier and at Les Llosses in June, but this is the first one logged on the stretch of the Ter running through the town, and the first time the two species have been recorded side by side there. The white-clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) is the only crayfish native to these rivers. It is a modest animal, rarely much over a hand's length, olive to brown with a rough shell and pale, whitish to pinkish undersides to its claws, which is where the name comes from. It wants cool, clean, well-oxygenated water with stones and undercut banks to hide beneath, and it has been losing ground across Europe for half a century. The signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) is the main reason. It is a North American species brought to Europe for farming in the 1960s and 70s, larger than the native, with smooth claws that carry a white or pale blue patch at the hinge of the pincers and red on their undersides. It also carries crayfish plague, a water mould (Aphanomyces astaci) that lives in its shell without doing it much harm. The mould sheds swimming spores into the water, and a European crayfish that picks them up dies, typically within weeks. There is no treatment. Where carriers and natives share a reach, the native population usually vanishes within a season or two, and the signal crayfish, which also breeds faster and competes harder for the same hiding places, takes over the river bed. Two sightings on consecutive days do not show that plague is present in the Ter here, and no die-off should be read into them. What they do show is that the carrier has reached a stretch where the native is still living. That is the moment when what people do on the riverbank matters most. Plague spores travel in water and on anything wet: boots, nets, dog fur, a bucket. Never move crayfish or water between streams, let gear dry fully before using it in another river, and if a crayfish with white-blotched, red-bottomed claws turns up in the Ter or its side streams, photograph it and report it to the Generalitat's wildlife service rather than handling or releasing it.