Top-10 best photos of Germany

Germany announced their national winners. This year contestants uploaded a lot of photos of wild life, so no wonder, that we have them among the winning images. Germany is the 3rd country which choose their top-10 best photos. Take a look!

Alcedo atthis (Common kingfisher)

Common kingfisher| by Joefrei – CC-BY-SA-3.0

The common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) also known as Eurasian kingfisher, or river kingfisher, is a small kingfisher with seven subspecies recognized within its wide distribution across Eurasia and North Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but migratesfrom areas where rivers freeze in winter.

This sparrow-sized bird has the typical short-tailed, large-headed kingfisher profile; it has blue upperparts, orange underparts and a long bill. It feeds mainly on fish, caught by diving, and has special visual adaptions to enable it to see prey under water. The glossy white eggs are laid in a nest at the end of a burrow in a riverbank. Continue reading “Top-10 best photos of Germany”

TOP-10 pictures of Macedonia

Macedonia choose their national winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2015. Once we called Macedonia the country of lakes. And the winning photos demonstrated that we were right. There are 5 lakes in the short-list of best photos of WLE 2015 Macedonia. Take a look!

Lake Ohrid

Lake Ohrid| by Darkocv

Lake Ohrid straddles the mountainous border between southwesternMacedonia and eastern Albania. It is one of Europe’s deepest and oldest lakes, preserving a unique aquatic ecosystem that is of worldwide importance, with more than 200 endemic species. 

Ohrid Lake – view from Radozda village| by Anita.Palceska

The importance of the lake was further emphasized when it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1979 and when, in 2010, NASA decided to name one of Titan’s lakes after Lake Ohrid. In 2014, the Ohrid-Prespa Transboundary Reserve between Albania and Macedonia was added to UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves.[3] The towns situated at the lakeside are Pogradec in Albania, along with Ohrid and Struga in Macedonia. The lake is otherwise densely surrounded by settlements in the form of villages and resorts – in both basin countries. Continue reading “TOP-10 pictures of Macedonia”

WLE 2015 France – quality pictures

International team of WLE 2015 asked national organizers to choose quality, featured, valued images. What image is quality? Quality images are photos that meet certain quality standards and are valuable for Wikimedia projects. They must be the work of Commons contributors; they need not be extraordinary or outstanding, but merely well-composed and generally well-executed.

Today we presenting you some of quality pictures form France.

Anchusa azurea

Anchusa azurea| by Christian Ferrer – CC-BY-SA-4.0

Anchusa azurea is a species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, known by the common names garden anchusa[1] and Italian bugloss (or just “bugloss”). It is a bristly perennial which reaches just over half a meter in height. It has straight lance-shaped leaves and petite tubular flowers of bright violet-blue. This species is native to Europe and western Asia and eastern Maghreb  but is well-known elsewhere as a noxious weed. In Crete it is called agoglossos and the locals eat the tender stems boiled, steamed or fried.

Numerous cultivars have been selected for garden use, of which ‘Loddon Royalist’ has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.

Andromeda polifolia

Continue reading “WLE 2015 France – quality pictures”

TOP-10 pictures of Pakistan

Wiki Loves Earth 2015 has ended in the most of the countries. And now it’s time to evaluate the photos and select the best of them for international part of the competition. We got first results and Top-10 photos from Pakistan.

As you probably remember we wrote that Pakistanis users were extremely active and uploaded over 11 000 photos. That made Pakistan the absolute leader in the country race till the last week before the end of the contest. Nevertheless organizers managed to choose Top-10 photos of Pakistan in the first couple of days after the end of WLE 2015.

«WLE 2015 took place in Pakistan from 1 till 31 May. We have got over 11 000 uploaded photos. We promoted the contest with social media and central notice banner. The local BBC burro made a story about Wikipedia Loves Northern Pakistan and that’s also gave us extra coverage and good number of participants. Our national part of the contest was focused only on northern areas of Pakistan. That’s the reason why we named it Wikipedia Loves Northern Pakistan. We believe that the northern part of the country is the most beautiful and attractive for the photo competition.

We decided to launch ongoing selecting prosess from the 1st day of the contest. So we asked our jury from the last year competition (Yaroslov from Russia, Daniele from Germany and Marc from Belgium) to judge these year pictures. National team shortlisted 150 photos and gave them to jury. So that’s how we choose national winners that fast», – commented the results of the contest SAQIB QAYYUM, national organizer of WLE Pakistan.

The international winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2015 are yet to be announced, but the Top-10 photos of Pakistan are here: Continue reading “TOP-10 pictures of Pakistan”

WLE 2015: who is on the run?

“Wiki Loves Earth 2015 ” closed on 31 May at 0:00:00 Kyiv time with 97 342 photos uploaded from 1-31 May. This year competition broke down the record of the WLE 2014.

The contest is closed in 19 of 26 participating countries.
Some countries decidede to prolonged the contest: Algeria, Austria, Nepal, Thailand – till 30 June, Tunisia – till 15 June.
In the last couple of days of the contest the leaders in the country race have changed. Continue reading “WLE 2015: who is on the run?”

WLE 2015 – Scenes from movies and TV series

WLE team loves good movies especially if there is beautiful natural landscapes. We decided to collect some photos from the contest that could be good illustration for well known films. Enjoy!

Game of Thrones

Ubsunur Hollow State Biosphere Reserve, Russia| by Александр Лещёнок – CC-BY-SA-4.0
Gorgany Nature Reserve, Ukraine| by Михайло Пецкович – CC-BY-SA-4.0
Beautiful scenery along the path towards the top of the mountain Pelister Baba, Macedonia| by Darkocv – CC-BY-SA-3.0
Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany| by Jens Perschke – CC-BY-SA-3.0

Continue reading “WLE 2015 – Scenes from movies and TV series”

Wiki Loves Earth 2015 – 5 days left before the end of the contest

27 days, 66 822 photos – that’s all about Wiki Loves Earth 2015. Just 5 days are left before the end of the contest and 4 246 photos to break the record of  WLE 2014 and pass the mark of 71 067 photos.

So what do we have for now? There are no changes with  the top-5 countries in the contest. Germany, Pakistan, Ukraine, Brazil and Russia are still the leaders of WLE 2015. For the first time from the beginning of the contest the leader has changed.  Germany has uploaded the biggest number of photos and took the first place in the country race.

Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald, Germany| by Jens Perschke – CC-BY-SA-3.0
Barnacle goose, Germany| by Jürgen Hamann – CC-BY-SA-3.0

Apparently spring has finally come and the activity of contestants in the second half of May increased. WLE 2015 got a lot of pictures of green fields, sunny valleys, flowers and herbs.

Continue reading “Wiki Loves Earth 2015 – 5 days left before the end of the contest”

WLE 2015 – Colors of Nature

What is your favorite color, time of the year and what kind of landscape you prefer the most? What if we combine all the things above in one shot. Take a look at one of the most memorable and bright photos of the contest.

Pakistan

Abottabad Green Mountains| by Saad Naseer – CC-BY-SA-3.0

Germany

Kappelberg| by Dagmar Dinkelacker – CC-BY-SA-3.0

Brazil

Canyon Fortaleza| by Francielle Garcia Moreira – CC-BY-SA-3.0

Ukraine

Ukrainian Carpathians| by Штец Крістіан – CC-BY-SA-4.0

Continue reading “WLE 2015 – Colors of Nature”