Spanish national winners show great diversity of landscapes and seasons. Spanish participants of WLE  have shown a big interest in the competition this year. You will find there wild nature, stunning panoramic shots, mountains, woods, rivers and waterfalls.

Spanish ibex

The Iberian ibex, Spanish ibex, Spanish wild goat, or Iberian wild goat is a species of ibex with foursubspecies. Of these, two can still be found on the Iberian Peninsula, but the remaining two are now extinct. The Portuguese subspecies became extinct in 1892 and the Pyrenean subspecies became extinct in 2000. An ongoing project to clone to the Pyrenean subspecies resulted in one clone being born alive in January 2009. This is the first taxon to become “un-extinct”, although the clone died a few minutes after birth due to physical defects in lungs.

Garajonay National Park

Garajonay National Park is located in the center and north of the island of La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands (Spain). It was declared a national park in 1981 and aWorld Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. It occupies 40 km² (15 sq mi) and it extends into each of the six municipalities on the island. Continue reading “Top-10 best photos of Spain”

One more country choose their national winners. Switzerland presents the Top-10 list of best photos. If you like water landscapes and peaceful beautiful places there is no doubts you will like these shots.

Lake Maggiore

Lake Maggiore or Lago Verbano  is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest lake in Italy and the largest in southernSwitzerland.

The lake and its shoreline are divided between the Italian regions of Piedmont and Lombardy and the Swiss canton ofTicino. Located halfway between Lake Orta and Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiore extends for about 65 kilometres (40 miles) betweenLocarno and Arona.

Muttsee dam

Limmernsee with the temporary cablecar to erect the Muttsee dam. Muttsee dam was finished October 2014.

Nature Park Neckertal

Continue reading “Top-10 best photos of Switzerland”

What do you know about Estonia? Did you ever consider it as a land of seas and forests? Well, you will. Just take a look at top-10 best photos of Estonia. We are impressed with the variety of landscapes.

Valgesoo Nature Park

Valgesoo forest, Valgesoo Nature Park, Põlva County, Estonia.

Tolkuse Bog

Tolkuse bog is a wetland in a reserve in south-western Estonia, located halfway between Pärnu and the Latvian border. The bog is located in the Luitemaa national park which consists of the Rannametsa coastline, the Rannametsa dunes (the highest in Estonia) and the Tolkuse wetland.

Saarnaki laid

Saarnaki laid is an uninhabited, moraine-based island in the Baltic Sea belonging to the country of Estonia.  Continue reading “Top-10 best photos of Estonia”

Wiki Loves Earth Russia presents us their top-10 best photos. This year there are a lot of photos of different water objects among them. Russian national winners presenting clean and simple vision of nature. Enjoy these powerful shots.

Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land or Francis Joseph’s Land is an uninhabited archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, Barents Sea and Kara Sea, constituting the northernmost part ofArkhangelsk Oblast in Russia. It consists of 191 islands, which cover an area of 16,134 square kilometers (6,229 sq mi), stretching 375 kilometers (233 mi) from east to west and 234 kilometers (145 mi) from north to south.

The islands are categorized in three groups, a western, central and eastern, separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Strait. The largest island is George Land, which measures 2,741 square kilometers (1,058 sq mi), followed by Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land.

Kungur Ice Cave

Kungur Ice Cave is a karst cave located in the Urals, near the town Kungur in Perm Krai, Russia, on the right bank of theSylva River. The cave is famous for its ice formations and is a popular tourist landmark. Continue reading “TOP-10 best photos of Russia”

Let’s start this week with TOP-10 best photos coming from Poland. This year national winners presenting us mostly shots of natural reserves and park. Take a chance to enjoy stunning landscapes and artistic vision of photographers.

Suwałki Landscape Park

Suwałki Landscape Park (Suwalski Park Krajobrazowy) is a protected area (Landscape Park) in north-eastern Poland, established in 1976, covering an area of 62.84 square kilometres (24.26 sq mi). The Park lies within Podlaskie Voivodeship, in Suwałki County (Gmina Jeleniewo, Gmina Przerośl, Gmina Rutka-Tartak, Gmina Wiżajny). Within the Landscape Park are three nature reserves.

Pieniny

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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 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. 

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”

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 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”