Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 125

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 125th 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 have been roaming around various natural places here in Prague, Czech Republic quite a lot lately and have taken many interesting pictures but I save these for separate future posts and instead, I will use this cool snail close up that I got to capture while working out in one of my favorite outdoor gyms just a few days ago. I know you probably cannot tell by the photo but this snail is actually not the Roman Snail, which is by far the most common snail species here in Europe. This one was much larger and with a beautiful, unusually elongated shell. I think it was one of the giant tropical snails that people sometimes keep as pets and it just might have "escaped" from someone´s apartment somehow. It was a really beautiful creature. I took this picture of it and moved it to the grass so that kids wouldn´t see it and hurt it.

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In the last round, we had 8 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@richardslater with this entry from the UK:

Hey @phortun, I'll pitch in here with this photograph I took last Friday in Newhaven on the South Coast of the UK. Unfortunately, honey bees are subject to Colony Collapse Disorder, resulting in all worker bees leaving a colony for no apparent reason. The worst-case scenario is that large populations of bees die off, which would knock on all crop production as bees and other insects are required to pollinate virtually all crop species. Insects are an essential part of our ecosystem. While they may be inconvenient, we wouldn't have bread, pastries, honey, beer or vegetable oil. We must be stewards of nature not just for future generations but for our wellbeing and enjoyment.

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@tommyl33 with this entry from Malaysia:

This is my entry from Malaysia for this week. The photo was taken yesterday when I was enjoying swimming at the river beside my house. This is part of series photo of bonsai made by nature in my recent post.

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@iliyan90 with this entry from Bulgaria:

I’ll join you this week as well. Photo of baby storks at my village. It was big enjoyment to watch them grow. I was so sorry I lost my drone for nearly a month and I didn’t manage to follow their progress from above. Photo taken last Sunday 26 of June from earth leve at my village Resen in Bulgaria.

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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! :)