Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 107

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 107th round of my special weekly photo challenge known as Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)

I know a lot of photo contests with nature as the main theme were/are/will be hosted by various people on the Hive blockchain but I wanted to come up with something more than just another photo contest where participants would submit their best natural photos. Therefore, I decided to go for quite an unusual concept that I am going to introduce in the following lines.

The aim of the Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun photo challenge is not to make you dig up your photo archives and submit the best pictures of nature that you have ever taken. Instead, I want you guys to go out and appreciate the beauty of our nature right now.

The internet (and the Hive blockchain as well) is flooded with picture perfect shots of landscapes, mountains, forests, beaches etc. taken years ago. But this is not what I want to see in this challenge. I want to see shots that may not be necessarily stunning but they must be fresh, proving that you have just physically spent some time outdoors in the fresh air. But remember that nature comes in many forms. It doesn´t have to be a pristine jungle or a deep remote forest. An urban park, a botanical garden, a little grove on the outskirts of your town - pretty much any place with some trees, plants, rocks, bodies of water or any other natural features would be just as fine ;)

Obviously, there is no way for me to verify whether the photo that you submit in the challenge is really fresh or if it was even taken by you so I am relying on your honesty guys. The prizes for the winners (as described below) are more symbolical than overly motivating so I don´t expect too much fraudulent behavior in this challenge anyway.

I want to keep the rules of this challenge as simple and benevolent as possible so let´s agree on just this:

Only one entry (photo) per person per round.

The photo must be yours and not older than one week.

Add a few words about the photo, at least where and when you took it.

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You can start submitting your entries to this round in the comment section below from now until the next round.

Prior to publishing the next round post, I will pick 3 winners, give my full upvote on their entries and feature them in the next round of the challenge. As long as the response is not too overwhelming, I will also try to give some smaller upvotes on all of the other entries to reward all participants.

I might change the concept and/or the rules of the photo challenge later on, depending on how things go. I usually host the challenge on Thursday but when needed for some reason, I can host it on some other day so better check my blog regularly not to miss out on it ;)

To keep up with you guys, I submit my own fresh natural photo to every round´s post too :) Here is my contribution to start out this round:

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I´m sorry to post this round on Friday and not of Thursday as I usually do but I really felt the urge to share my unexpected and very emotional experience with the Ukrainian refugees yesterday. So here is my contribution to the new round. A landscape shot taken by me while walking my mum´s doggie here in the rural part of the Moravian - Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It was a nice and sunny (yet quite chilly day) yesterday and it was good to spend some quality time in nature. Today, however, it looks very different here as it was snowing heavily during the night and everything is covered with a decent layer of snow now.

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In the last round, we had 5 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@trangbaby with this entry:

Congrats to all winners, well done !! Lovely shot too @phortun. I can't stop reading news about Ukraine each day. It's sad to see this happening nowadays. I have entered the picture below. I just took it today when I walked around Tuyen Lam Lake with my friend in Da Lat, Vietnam. Having left my city a few days ago, I am currently enjoying the scenery and weather in Da Lat since it has been cloudy and rainy in Da Nang. Hope you're having a great weekend there. :)

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@suzana72 with this entry:

My entry: Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 106. Spring is announced, and these flowers are among the first to bloom regardless of the cold nights ... As soon as the sun fences, they open their petals... They sprout even under a thick layer of leaves .... This blue flower is a Two-leaf squill (Scilla bifolia) It is known to us as a wild hyacinth ... I took this photo last Thursday when the sun warmed up nicely. And the place is the Vršac Mountains above the town of Vršac (Banat, Serbia).

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@friendlymoose with this entry:

For the new round I'm submitting this photo of a blackbird in my backyard I shot just this morning. The population of blackbirds here in the Netherlands has decreased by 30% in the past few years. This is mainly because a lot of people completely pave their backyards nowadays leaving almost no place for insects. I keep a large part of my backyard open and feed the birds to help them through the winter.

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Congratulations guys! It was my pleasure to give you 100% upvotes on your entries :)

I am looking forward to what you will come up with in this round.

Have fun and appreciate the beauty of nature!

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I post this series in the Amazing Nature community, a great community for all nature lovers. Feel free to check it out ;)

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This post was created by me for the Hive blockchain exclusively. All rights reserved.

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Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about Nature, Animals, Ecology, Crypto, Sport, Traveling, Photography and discovering secrets and beauties of the World, feel free to follow me as these are the topics I mostly write about. Have a wonderful day and keep on hiving, guys! :)