Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 181

Hey there my Hive friends and followers!

Welcome to the 181st 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 has only been a few days since we returned from the exquisite Portuguese island of Madeira so I´m happy to use a picture from there in this round of the photo challenge. When in Funchal, the capital city of the island, we also visited the Monte Palace Tropical Garden, an amazing natural place literally brimming with all kinds of beautiful trees and flowers. This is how lush and vigorous the blue hydrangeas get in there :) I cannot wait to write a post that will be dedicated to Monte Palace exclusively. Hopefully soon...

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In the last round, we had 10 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@betterthanhome with this entry from Australia:

Great to see that you´re still doing this photo contest. Since I´m back from my Hive break and my trip up North Australia I will participate more often. Just one week ago we parked out car at one of the most beautiful lookouts I´ve ever seen. The photo can hardly describe how beautiful it was. Photo was taken from Milla-Milla Lookout in the Mount-Hypipamee National Park.

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@stayoutoftherz with this entry from Austria:

Hi! I took this pic today at an excursion in a national park in Upper Austria, a kind of teaser, more to come in my blog :) I find it remarkable how this guy (probably a Rana dalmatina) blends in perfectly in his surrounding.

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@littlebee4 with this entry from Ireland:

Today I want to share what I saw at the end of our walk today… The clouds were just awesome. We walked the Shannon blue way in Ireland. A path/ trail along the canal… towards Leitrim village. A few counties over. First part was over a boardwalk over a lake. Then we walked over a gravel path… all the way until we reached a lock. It was around 4km one way, we turned around and walked back… but I believe this walkway goes on and on. Will check how long it actually is when I post the entire walk one day soon. Enjoy my view in the moment we reached the board walk again on the way back to the car and I turned and saw the sky… It was 17:00 h.

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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! :)