This is no Spaghetti Western movie.

It's a way to describe my varying perceptions of the insects that surround me depending on their different physical traits or the characteristics of their relations with our own species.

THE GOOD

Who isn't charmed at the view of a butterfly? Coming in all kind of colors you can imagine, with its (more or less) gracious flight and sometimes at the time you least expect it, as if magically appearing, they generally occupy a prevalent place in the human heart. On the symbolic level, they are often equated with evolution and growth toward illumination (or wisdom if you prefer a less esoteric word) as they go into four stages of life cycles: larvae, caterpillar, chrysalis and finally as a butterfly. The same as goes for taking pictures of other flying animals, you always live with the fear that they could take off at any time making the resulting satisfying photo even more so a kind of rewarding trophy. Here are two species I was able to capture during my travels.

The Red Admiral

The mourning cloak or Camberwell beauty

THE BAD

This green jewel beetle is beautiful but said to be highly destructive to ash trees. I was on holidays in Ottawa when I snapped a picture of it because I was really impressed with its metallic like color. When I met it, two years ago, I didn't know what it was, but here on the Montreal Island they are trying to control its invasion resulting in that they have to constantly cut trees devasted by this little fellow. Lately, when one of my youth and Facebook friend, who used to worked at the Montreal Botanical Garden but who now has exported his tree-trimmer talents in British Columbia, posted some info about the little creature on his wall, I was finally able to put two and two together.

The emerald ash borer

THE UGLY

The first time I saw one of these was out of the corner of my eye in my first apartment in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. I couldn't believe the size and speed of this monster! Living in a basement, I thought my encounter was due to being partly underground and thus that it was normal and in accordance with the fact that I had, in this way, been highly exposed to insects in general. But now being on a third floor, this summer I had the surprise to come face to face with this horrible centipede once again. Being in a hurry to get this ''thing'' out of my bathtub, I botched the image and managed to make the pic as ugly (in a blurry sense) as this arthropod.

The Scutigera coleoptrata

THE NEWBIE

While in the other cases it has to be obvious why I called them the good, the bad & the ugly, you must wonder why I'm calling this one the newbie. It's not because it's a new species or anything of that sort, but the reason is that I took its portrait only two weeks ago from my kitchen's window. Maybe I could have opened my screen and let it in so that I could cook and eat it as they do in some asian countries. It's been two consecutive years I've been able to watch a specimen of these from where I stay, but never did I heard their loud song so late in the year, in the month of September as I did this year.

The cicadas

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This was a kind of ''end of summer hommage to the insects'' I share my breathing space with, before they disappear for the winter.

Hope you liked it.