Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 191

Hey there my Hive friends and followers!

Welcome to the 191st 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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It seems that autumn has finally caught up what it missed during the first weeks of its official season. The temperatures have dropped significantly, it´s mostly cold, rainy and foggy during the day and almost freezing (literally) during the night. Our mountains have just received their first snow loads of the season and here in the lowlands, Mother Nature has been busy painting everything with the beautiful autumnal colors. Two days ago, I went for a little hike to the Prokop Valley here in Prague, Czech Republic. It was a pretty chilly and cloudy day so even the places that were crowded with people until very recently were now empty. As usually when in the valley, I checked out the Prokop Creek as well. It´s just a little stream but I like it. It meanders through the bottom of the valley, burbling loudly and cheerfully. I squatted down on the shore and took some low angle shots of the creek. The one featured above was my favorite :)

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In the last round, we had 9 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@jlinaresp with this entry from Venezuela:

Hello @phortun friend!!! Here is my entry :) It is a female yellow-bellied seedeater (Sporophila nigricollis) which flew at the same time as I took the picture :) The photo was taken during a walk in a rural area near my village (Montalbán, Carabobo, Venezuela) on the morning of October 13th at about 8:30 AM. I made a complete post with more photos and my thoughts about the place and what it's like to wander along those roads. You can see it here: https://peakd.com/hive-127788/@jlinaresp/walking-rural-and-nature-from-montalban-carabobo-venezuela. Hugs for all!!! ;)

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@nenio with this entry from Chile:

The moon is at the beginning of its cycle, with the crescent fase. This photo shows our satellite above the sea with a sky with the typical colors of the twilight forming an interesting color gradient. This is part of this post: https://hive.blog/hive-127788/@nenio/the-crescent-moon-over-the-sea-la-luna-creciente-sobre-el-mar-en-es. The photo was taken in Antofagasta, Chile yesterday.

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@franzpaulie with this entry from the Philippines:

Casually stroll around Valencia mountain, Philippines, especially when the temperature in the city rises. I sneaked away to this backyard 3 days ago.

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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! :)