Hello Nature Lovers !

I would like to cordially invite you to another great week of the Amazing Nature Contest. There were already so many excellent entries regarding how amazing nature can be in the past episodes, thanks to all of you, but there is still so much more to see! ^^ To participate in #amazingnature just create a post that shows how amazing nature is for you personally. This can be anything from a beautiful flower or animal to an astonishing sunset.

What is the Purpose of the Contest ?

I am a huge lover of nature and really enjoy to take pictures of all the lovely things that surround me every day, no matter if those are plants, animals or landscapes. I found Steemit to be a brilliant place to find and watch nature pictures from all over the world. There is such a diversity of great content out there, thanks to all of you, from different perspectives and out of various motivations. I would like to collect all those beautiful snapshots and their amazing stories in a weekly compilation so that you can all benefit from the beauty that we are facing all the time, but so often are not able to appreciate in the modern times we are living in.

This #amazingnature contest is at home in DNA, a organization run by people for the people, with the aim to foster and densify nature-appreciation in the blockchain. DNA is also the home of the #featheredfriends hosted by amazing @melinda010100 🦢.

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Contest Rules :

• Use #amazingnature as FIRST TAG and CLEARLY MENTION that your post is an ENTRY for this contest.
• As an ALTERNATIVE you can use the #hive-127788 TAG prior to #amazingnature as the first one. It is the tag of the AMAZING NATURE community.
• All pictures have to be your own. You can use the amazing nature banner if you like or create your own.
• STATE IN THE TEXT why those pictures are representing YOUR AMAZING NATURE. This is an essential part of this contest.
• Drop the LINK to your post IN THE COMMENTS. You can add a picture if you like. It is NECESSARY as I have to post a link in Discord on Friday, 5 days later for voting and also for my own compiling purposes.
• The entry window is open for ~ 5 DAYS. Watch out for my FINAL CLOSING COMMENT!

If you miss the entry, please wait for the next round. As I have to work and also a family to manage, there are no fixed UTC times and the window can open in a wide range between 10 am - 10 pm and therfore also close accordingly ^^

Possible Topics :

As nature covers an incredible wide range there is really anything possible. Amazing Natures categories could be anything from the following topics:

• Botany
• Zoology
• Geology
• Landscapes
• Philosophy
• ... Surprise us ^^

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Prizes to Win :

• 1st Place : 3 SBI
• 2nd Place : 2 SBI
• 3rd Place : 1 SBI

I will always try my best to link and present all participants of Amazing Nature in the entries section of the announcement posts that will be published roughly one week later on Sunday (depending on my time schedule this may shift some time ^^). This way you will have a nice compilation of them all. As an special feature, the new title picture of the contest will be created from the entry of the contest winner. This time it is from @annephilbrick.

How are the Winners choosen ?

The voting for the winners will be done by the whole DNA community. Therefore we created a special contest channel in the DNA Discord (Amazing Nature Contest). Here I will post the announcement post including the winners (Announcements) EACH SUNDAY together with all your entries (Entries) EACH FRIDAY. Every member of DNA will be able to assign "voting emojies" under the entries for 24 HOURS and in the end those three with the most of them are the lucky winners. This I hope should lead to a more objective consideration than just involving myself as a judge. I will engage as a judge in case of a draw ^^

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THIS WEEKS WINNERS

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The winner of this week is our all time nature lover @annephilbrick with her Eastern Grey Squirrel. She is a big fan of those little fur balls, as I am too, and is amazed every time that she observes those swiftly climbing way high up into the trees tops, crossing over on branches and boughs from one tree to another and then leaping over great distance, making it look so easy and effortless. The Grey's that she presents us here are very intelligent and even brake into birdfeeders that were designed and claimed to be squirrel-proof. They are professional hoarders of food, but contrary to other squirrels they are also thieves that are stealing food that other squirrels have hoarded and hidden away. These Grey Squirrels can smell seeds and nuts beneath a foot of snow. Thank you very much for another great entry from you. It is always a pleasure to have you entered ^^

@annephilbrick

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Here we have an entry from @farm-mom. She is new to the contest, a great blogger about nature and also fan of @melinda010100's #featheredfriends. She entered with a post about a three hour cruise down the Peace river in Punta Gorda, Florida. On the tour they encountered dolphins flipping and diving in and out of the water in hot pursuit of the vessel. On the picture here you can see amother and baby, swimming along side each other. She is also showing us some nice impressions of the mangroves, a dense mass of tropical maritime trees or shrubs that send out prop roots to form important coastal land that are foundations of unique ecosystems, and which is the home to so many different kinds of birds. Thank you for putting this post about your tour into the #amazingnature contest!

@farm-mom

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Our third participant that receives a winning place this week is @julianhorack. He is a "consciousness explorer, vegetarian and trained Vedanta philosopher" from the Garden Route in South Africa. His blog is an excellent nature related one that is full of beautiful philosophy, great to read, and reminds me on other philosophical touched entries like we are used from @kaminchan and @mysteriousroad. His entry for this week is about the cliff edges of the south Cape coast of Africa, a very fertile region rich in vegetation. This so-called Garden Route was devastated by a fire two years ago, the worst in 150 years, which destroyed over 1000 houses. In his entry he perfectly remindes us that although nature sustains us, she is also “red in tooth and claw” that can also take away life just as easily and is capable of unleashing sheer forces and powers of utterly destruction. He combines this great text with a beautiful photo of a free-range horse in front of the burned remains of the trees. The horse is bowing, as if in submission to the power of nature coast. "We are all at the mercy of nature, and if she wants to then she can give life and take it away." Thank you vert much for your first entry with that outstanding entry and reminder about the powers of Mother Nature ;)

@julianhorack

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HONORABLE MENTIONS

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@gingbabida

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@whatisnew

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@wongbraling

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@haastrecht

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@redheadpei

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@bucipuci

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@akinome

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@dzoji

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FEATURING

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This weeks feature is about @nightportraits, a amateur photographer from spain. The focus in thi blog is on nature photography, especially about capturing beautiful landscapes. You will also find some monochromes in there and other nature related motives such as animals or nature portraits. He is also a member of DNA ^^

@nightportraits

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DNA - Densifying Nature-Appreciation:

DNA is an organization, managed by @medro-martin, to foster and DENSIFY NATURE-APPRECIATION which aims to establish REPORTS OF BIODIVERSITY DATA that is contributed by all of us Steemians and subsequently cataloged.

Therefore DNA searches for HIGH-QUALITY posts that aim to DESCRIBE and determine the BIODIVERSITY AROUND YOU with added EXPLANATIONS and INFORMATIONS. For these informative posts they offer a CURATION SERVICE using the @dna.steem account. It is also a CURATION TRAIL.

At the moment DNA is also the home of the #amazingnature contest for all your post about the amazing nature all around us and also the home of the #featheredfriends hosted by the lovely @melinda010100 🦢 for all you great posts about our feathered friends ^^ But we hope that more nature related communities will join, or maybe some Steemians start their own little project there ;) .. Maybe even you?

If you are INTERESTED in DNA, please do not hesitate to ask about it, or directly JOIN US in the DNA DISCORD ;)

"By The People, For The People"

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Steem Terminal Discord:

There is another initiative here on Steem that I would like to bring close to you as I absolutely love them, the Steem Terminal:

STEEM TERMINAL DISCORD

It is a great location for LEARNING ABOUT STEEM, Discord, and Steem-related communities, full of nice people that you may ask if you need ASSISTANCE, with nearly everything ^^ You will find documents to assist you, a place to learn and practice, and find out about the many opportunities to form CONNECTIONS with other Steemians.

It also host the REDFISH RALLY, a funny challenge for all those that are new here to the world of Steem. The Terminal also hosts the HEYHAVEYAMET project by @heyhaveyamet, which introduces all new steemians on a daily basis, so that you don't have to search for them ^^

So why not joining us in the STEEM TERMINAL DISCORD? You will not regret it ^^

"Your one-stop location for learning about destinations in the Steem blockchain and Discord"

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Amazing Nature Community:

You all asked for one and here it is, the Amazing Nature Community. It is dedicated to all you Nature Lovers out there, no matter if Zoology, Botany, Landscapes or Philosophy ^^ You will also find many entries to the contest in there. It has the #hive-127788 tag and you can find it here:

AMAZING NATURE COMMUNITY

Currently I have 39 Nature Lovers on my autovote, which is set to 20% for 1 daily upvote at the moment. I still reserve some voting power for manual curating when needed. In addition the voting trail also incluedes 100% votes on dna, steemterminal and heyhaveyamet as I support all three projects.

Previous Participants :

I thank all of you who participated and voted this week and hope that you enjoyed the Amazing Nature Contest. I am looking forward to more excellent content every week ^^. Of course this format is open for all kind of critics that can increase the quality of the contest and I am always happy about anyone who wants to join us on this little adventure.

@akinome @alexanderfluke @alinix @annamarina @annephilbrick @apnigrich @artofwisdom @angelro @atomcollector @bahttg @bigsambucca @brittandjosie @bucipuci @careassaktart @cocolefleur @davidesimoncini @dkkarolien @dzoji @elkezaksek @ellenripley @engrsayful @farm-mom @haastrecht @gingbabida @hangin @iamraincrystal @ireenchew @irvet @isabelpena @joanstewart @joebtc @johannpiber @julianhorack @justclickindiva @kamrunnahar @karbon @kheys @lighteye @leslierevales @manojbhatt @manuelramos @mariacaffrey @melinda010100 @mers @mintymile @misschance @molometer @myjob @mysteriousroad @nelinoeva @nilom @ninahaskin @offgridlife @paradigm42 @phortun @qwerrie @redheadpei @sarimanok @sayee @sallybeth23 @seadbeady @s3rg3 @theoctoberwind @thesobuz @travelsbyblue @trincowski @viking-ventures @whatisnew @wongbraling

If you want me to take you out of the list, or if you don't want your picture, in the case you are the winner, to be used as a new title picture, just let me know about it in the comments.

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Best wishes,
Adalger