Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 164

Hey there my Hive friends and followers!

Welcome to the 164th 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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As I mentioned in some of my previous posts, the weather has been quite disappointing lately. It´s mid April already, it should be warmer and sunnier in this part of the world but for some reason, it´s still cold, cloudy and rainy. There are just these little random "sunny windows" throughout the day but they very often last less than an hour, sometimes literally just a few minutes... It was during one of these windows that I happened to be roaming around a little quince orchard here in the Prague neighborhood of Stodulky and fortunately, I managed to click this picture of the orchard at least. Nothing really fancy, I know, but the quince trees are sprouting these days and it actually looks nice over there. Photo taken yesterday in the afternoon here in Prague, Czech Republic.

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In the last round, we had 6 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@nenio with this entry from Chile:

The Easter full moon. Here it is a photo of the full moon taken last week during Easter, reflecting its light on the sea, where there is a cargo ship anchored. The photo was taken at Antofagasta (Chile).

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@jlinaresp with this entry from Venezuela:

Hello dear people, here my entry to Round 163! Title: "April from here". This photo was taken last 05-Apr-23 from the edge of a mountain trail in "La Copa" (Montalbán, Carabobo, Venezuela). I confess that it is a complicated photo to observe due to the complexity of its visual elements. But this scene simply seduced me when I observed it when I stopped to rest in my ascent to the mountain... It seems to me that it summarizes much of the atmosphere of these days of drought and heat, when the forest trees lose their leaves and offer that kind of almost abstract visions. NIKON D7000 | 55 mm | 1/3200s | F/5.6 | ISO 400

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@bozz with this entry from Kentucky, USA:

I took this photo just four short days ago when I was down in Laretto, Kentucky. My wife and I took a trip down to bourbon country for spring break. It was so nice to be able to get out and enjoy the nice weather. This day was practically perfect after all of the snow we have been getting in Michigan. The grass was so green and all kinds of birds and insects were out and about. Even though Spring is taking its time arriving where we live, it was nice to see signs of it down south!

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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! :)