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8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 JUNE 2026 NEWS Expression of Interest Commissioning by the Planning Authority for an Independent Engineer's Certification (Ref: EOI 002/2026) The Planning Authority is hereby inviting qualified individuals to participate in this expression of interest for the Commissioning by the Planning Authority for an Independent Engineer's Certification. The Expression of Interest document can be downloaded from the Authority website on the following link: http://www.pa.org.mt/en/expression-of-interests. Offers are to be deposited in the quotations box at the Authority offices at 3, Triq Fra Diegu, Marsa MRS 1501 by Friday, 26th June 2026 before 10:00 am. Any requests for clarifications concerning this Expression of Interest should be addressed to the Director of Corporate Services on email tenders@pa.org.mt by not later than Thursday, 18th June 2026. Late or incomplete submissions will not be considered. www.pa.org.mt PLANNING AUTHOR ITY A spectacular butterfly migration with no return journey IF you have spent any time out- doors over the past few weeks, chances are you have noticed them. On coastal paths, in val- leys, in gardens and even in ur- ban areas, butterflies have been appearing in numbers that feel anything but ordinary. People have been stopping to pho- tograph them, posting about them online, and trying to fig- ure out what is happening. It is one of the most impres- sive painted lady butterfly mi- grations seen over the Maltese islands in recent years. The painted lady, known sci- entifically as Vanessa cardui, travels thousands of kilometres between Africa and Europe every year, crossing deserts, open sea and mountain rang- es. Malta sits at the centre of the Mediterranean, making it a natural stopping point for but- terflies to rest and feed before continuing north. Naturalist Arnold Sciberras has been watching the phe- nomenon closely. He says in- fluxes like this tend to occur on a roughly one-to-two-year cycle, but the numbers this season have been exception- al, with painted ladies turning up across the full length and breadth of the islands. Along- side them, in unusually high numbers, has been the small white, Pieris rapae, a less cel- ebrated species that is also ca- pable of long-distance travel. Seeing both together in such volume does not happen every year. Godwin Degabriele, a trained butterfly farmer and researcher who has spent years studying Malta's Lepidoptera, says the explanation lies in Africa. As temperatures rise, the vegeta- tion painted ladies depend on to lay their eggs dries up. "These animals migrate northwards to find a better chance of laying their eggs on fresh, flourishing plants," De- gabriele says. The same dynamic plays out on every continent with differ- ent butterfly species. Degabri- ele points to the Monarch but- terfly crossing the American states. In the Mediterranean, he adds, the African Monarch, passes through Malta too. It cannot breed here as its food plant does not grow locally, and so it continues on, most likely toward Sicily. One thing Degabriele is keen to correct though is the idea that painted ladies migrate south again in autumn. They do not. Once they arrive at their destination, they mate, lay their eggs and die. There is no return journey. More butterflies, or more phones? Before drawing too many con- clusions from this year's num- bers, Degabriele offers a caveat. The apparent scale of the mi- gration may not be as clear-cut as it seems. "I'm not aware of a scientific study that has compared this year with previous years," he says. "It's not necessarily that there are more butterflies. It's just that there are more people reporting it." Social media has changed what gets noticed. A migration that might have passed with lit- tle comment a decade ago now generates hundreds of posts and photographs within days. But that is not the same as a scientific count. The species that cannot leave The painted lady is, by most measures, not a species under threat. It is one of the most widely distributed butterflies on the planet and adaptable enough to be very difficult to threaten. A good migration year is not a conservation story. The conservation story is about the species that never leave. Malta has around 22 butterfly species. Only four are migra- tory. The remaining species are residents with no ability to move elsewhere when condi- tions deteriorate. Degabriele says habitat de- struction and increasingly dry summers have stripped away the plants these butterflies need to complete their life cy- cles. When a food plant dries up too early in the season, cat- erpillars starve before they can develop and surviving adults find nowhere suitable to lay their eggs. Of the 22 species, around 11 are still seen with regularity. The others have become ex- ceedingly rare. The thousands of painted la- dies currently passing through Malta are a reminder of what migratory insects are capable of. For the species that live here permanently, the picture looks rather different. JULIANA ZAMMIT jzammit@mediatoday.com.mt Left to right: Arnold Sciberras and Godwin De Gabriele The painted lady