Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 179

Hey there my Hive friends and followers!

Welcome to the 179th 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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I managed to go for some little hikes and walks in nature in the past couple of days and I did take some shots for this challenge while out there as usually but yesterday, when I was in my room, checking out posts by my fellow Hivers. nature actually came to visit me here in my Prague apartment! :) This curious feathered fella landed on my window sill. He looked into my room to check on me and knocked on the window glass with his beak. I looked back at him and knocked on the window from my side. He actually seemed to enjoy this little conversation of ours and was not afraid at all. Then, he knocked me a goodbye and flew off. I took many pictures of him during this unexpected encounter but unfortunately, the window glass was not clean enough to be fully transparent (there were some water drop stains on it after the morning rain) so most of the pictures of the bird turned out to be out of focus. The one above is quite ok but for some reason, the bird looks like a cross between a pigeon and a magpie in that shot while in fact, it was a 100% magpie :)

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In the last round, we had 14 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@himalayanwomb with this entry from India:

So this is my first entry. Not even a week had passed since it did not rain in North India for a day, so I moved my body which had been lying in one place for many days and thought that lets go to Sahastradhara today. So I left with a little money in my pocket and a black umbrella in my hand. I reach Sahastradhara by local bus. There are dark clouds in the sky and it seems that it might rain anytime. The name of this river which is visible in the photo is Sahastradhara, I used to come here everyday in summer to swim, today I am surprised to see the strong current in it. Out of habit, I sit on the bank of the river and watch the clouds, the forest, the flying bird, the bumblebees sitting on the flowers near me, and my lovely river flowing with purpose as if it will join the sea today itself. I look at the river and think. Some questions about life, some about myself, some about the future. Light drops of rain bring me out of my thoughts. Since it has started raining heavily now let's go back. I have always liked to sit by the rivers, once I stayed in a tent on the river bank for 2 months, well that story again sometime.

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@friendlymoose with this entry from France:

Very cool shot @phortun. It looks a bit surreal with those flowers. Your comment on my post reminded me to join this cool contest again. We have moved from the Garda Lake in Italy to the Jura Region in France. That is where I took the following picture during kayaking. Photo taken yesterday.

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@franzpaulie with this entry from the Philippines:

Today's hike highlight in Valencia Mountain, Philippines. Stunned struck by this very unique knight-looking grasshopper. I'm pretty sure that there are many other animals and insects zoologists haven't even met.

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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! :)