Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 64th 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 was roaming around the forest surrounding the Bednarski Park here in Krakow, Poland a few days ago when I noticed this handsome fella enjoying one of the first truly warm and sunny days of the year. This species is known as the Roman Snail and it´s one of the largest and also most common snails in Europe. I am quite familiar with these guys as they really are abundant in nature here but what I didn´t know is the fact that some specimens of this species can live for up to 35 years. That´s some very impressive longevity for such a little creature.

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In the last round, we had 11 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@ummehabiba with this entry:

Assalamualaikum. From Bangladesh. Panchagarh in My Home District. This is a picture from several days ago. Spectacular view of a nice place near my home district . This is one of my favorite pictures. Because this natural beauty here drives me crazy. The eye-catching beauty of the sky in the picture, and the reflection of the sky below is beautifully reflected. And in the midst of this wonderful beauty, if you notice very well, you can see that some people have tried to fish in the water with nets. In a word, the picture captures an amazingly beautiful scene combining human and natural beauty. Best wishes are open to all.

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@loulou1987 with this entry:

Západ slunce s výhledem na Lysou horu, foceno v úterý na Bílé a už jen malinko sněhu (ještě stále dost na lyžování). V příštím kole už budou jarní fotky, slibuju 😃

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@bossel with this entry:

Sorry for for being absent last time, but I was too tired to post or edit much. This week was actually worse, because of Greek Easter (the next church is just 10m away & every morning & evening there were 3 hour sermons), but at least yesterday I got a good day's sleep. So, here is my latest masterpiece. Algae-overgrown rocks at the Greek coast south of Patras. One of the first really warm days here, with very hazy air, so the light was not great, but still nice. Taken on Friday, when I was again kept from sleep by some sermons, but gathered enough energy to cycle to the coast.

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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, 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! :)