Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 169

Hey there my Hive friends and followers!

Welcome to the 169th 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. If you want to create a separate post as your entry, you can do that but please always remember to submit your entry in the form of a comment here in this post as well. I only check the entries submitted here as comments.

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. I also give some smaller upvotes on the other entries too so that all participants get rewarded for their engagement.

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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As you might know from my "swan post", I recently visited a very nice and interesting natural place called the Hostivice Ponds but because of the bad weather that we had that day, my landscape shots from that place didn´t turn out well so I cannot really show you how beautiful it is over there. Fortunately, I clicked some close ups too and this kind of photography is usually not affected by poor light conditions that dramatically so I can share one of those shots with you here. I don´t know what species these little beauties are but I liked their tiny green still life :) I took this shot while exploring the Hostivice Ponds, Czech Republic a couple of days ago.

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In the last round, we had 6 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@jlinaresp with this entry from Venezuela:

Here my entry to Round 168! Title: "Yes, it's a Guanaco!" Guanacos (Also called "Llamas") are not the kind of animals I expect to see when I go for a walk in the fields around a nearby town... In fact, this is the first one I've seen outside of a zoo in my country... But there is one, grazing peacefully in a field surrounded by trees and mountains! :) This photo was taken in Aguirre (Carabobo State, Venezuela) on May 9, 2023.

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@triplug with this entry from Romania:

I can't help but be part of round 168 especially since it has as its main idea Appreciate Beauty of Nature. The photo was taken a few days ago near the area where I live, I was out for a walk with my dog, I found it very interesting the contrast between the raw green of nature and the heavy clouds that were forecast to come over the village and of course there was a big storm brewing. I was lucky that I was in the car shortly after I took the picture and it started raining in gusts.

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@ibbtammy with this entry from Nigeria:

So this is my first time joining you guys over here. This picture was taken when I joined my friend to go inspect the land that he wants to purchase, I looked at how fresh these plants were and I felt so bad for them, in a months or two they will be sent out of this world for humans to build on this same spot were they existed. So sad. This picture was taken on the 7th of May 2023 in a small town name Igbodo of Edo State, Nigeria.

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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, Traveling, Photography, Animals, Ecology, Crypto, Sport, Fitness 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! :)