Valentines 2012 : ‘Hearts’ – By Nature
Posted in Q-News on 11. Feb, 2012
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Just in time for Valentine’s: Nature reveals its amazing heart-shaped wonders
With Valentine’s Day just days away, it is the time of year when love is in the air.
And as this series of images from across the globe show, Mother Nature is also gearing up to celebrate the day.
The images were taken by a number of photographers and capture heart shapes from across the natural world.
Love: Two swans appear to kiss as they form a heart shape with their necks,
while this penguin has a particularly vivid image among their fur
Honey, I love you: A swarm of bees hang from a tree
while another insect has a heart on his back
There is the flamingo creating a heart shape with its white and pink plumage, while two swans show their love for each other by appearing to kiss and forming a heart as they swim in the morning mist in Cleveland.
Other natural displays include the penguin with a white-shaped heart patch on its chest.
Elsewhere, insects are not left out, with one special creepy-crawly having a heart on their back while a swarm of honeybees hang from their hive in a heart shape.
It is not just animals putting on a display for Valentine’s Day though.
Fraser Island off the east coast of Australia has a heart-shaped area of water known as Lake McKenzie while just up the coast the reeds close to the Whitsunday Islands form the shape.
In Florida, the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary makes its heart shape using lichen of a very appropriate colour, red.
And from the air, Germany there’s the heart-shaped garden growing in Waltrop, near Dortmund, while in Walchensee, south of Munich in the Bavarian Alps, there’s an island covered with evergreen trees that was just made for lovers.
While many of the photos here are taken from the air, you may want to take a glance skywards as even the clouds are joining in.
A heart-shaped cloud was photographed over Bohol Island in the Philippines. / dailymail.co.uk
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via telegraph
Valentine’s Day: hearts in Nature
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It’s that time of year when love is in the air, and it’s all over the Earth – and even in space. Here is a selection of images showing Nature has a heart, too.
A tiny island in the Adriatic has become a holiday hit for lovers because it is shaped like a heart. The 130,000 square yard islet of Galesnjak came to prominence after its unusual shape was highlighted on Google Earth. Even the owner of the uninhabited island – now known as Lovers’ Island – didn’t realise how perfectly heart-shaped the island off the Croatian coast was until he was swamped with requests from couples to stay there. See this island on Google Maps.
Picture: EUROPICS
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Heart-shaped Tupai Island in French Polynesia
See this island on Google Maps.
Picture: SPECIALIST STOCK / BARCROFT MEDIA
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The Heart Reef, in the Great Barrier Reef of the Whitsundays, Australia
Picture: Aflo Co. Ltd. / Alamy
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An aerial image of a heart-shaped orchard near Huish Hill earthwork, Oare, Wiltshire, England
Picture: Robert Harding World Imagery / Alamy
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Heart-shaped island in Walchensee, Germany
Picture: SPECIALIST STOCK / BARCROFT MEDIA
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Heart-shaped rock on Palm Beach, Preveli, Rethymno, Crete, Greece.
Picture: ALAMY
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Red cliffs with a heart-shaped hole on the west coast of Corsica, France
Picture: LOETSCHER CHLAUS / Alamy
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Heart-shaped tree in a wheat field in the English countryside, UK.
Picture: ALAMY
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Heart Lake, from the High Divide Trail, Olympic National Park, Washington.
Picture: ALAMY
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Heart-shaped island in the mangrove delta of the Vaza-Barris River in Brazil
Picture: SPECIALIST STOCK / BARCROFT MEDIA
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A heart-shaped island in the Okavango Delta, Bostwana
Picture: Karin Duthie / Alamy
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A heart-shaped group of trees in the snow in Datteln, Ruhr area, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Picture: imagebroker / Alamy
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An iceberg in the Southern Ocean, off the coast of Antarctica, forms into the shape of a heart
Picture: jeremy sutton-hibbert / Alamy
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The Coeur de Voh in New Caledonia
Picture: SPECIALIST STOCK / BARCROFT MEDIA
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Heart shaped island in Lake Kleine Mueritz, Rechlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany.
Picture: ALAMY
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The Heart Nebula bleeds out into space in this image taken by an amateur astrophotographer. The nebula IC 1805 lies some 7,500 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia
Picture: http://www.flickr.com/people/s58y/
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Scientists discovered a Valentine from Mars when a camera on the Mars Global Surveyor shot a heart-shaped pit, formed when a straight-walled trough collapsed. The pit was about 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometres) at its widest. The photo was taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor in 1999.
Picture: NASA/REUTERS
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A Beluga whale blowing a heart-shaped bubble underwater at Harbin Polarland, Heilongjiang Province, China.
Picture: KPA/ZUMA/REX
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‘Treasure Smile’, a filly belonging to Iwate Horse Racing in Japan, has a distinctive heart shaped mark on ger muzzle.
Picture: REX
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A long-coated male chihuahua named “Love-kun” with a heart-shaped pattern on his coat sleeps at Pucchin Dog’s shop in Odate, northern Japan
Picture: REUTERS/Toru Hanai
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Large Red Damselfly pair mating.
Picture: ALAMY
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Mute swans forming a heart shape with their necks during courtship.
Picture: ALAMY
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Two flamingos form a red heart
Picture: blickwinkel / Alamy
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Two ladybirds on a plant in Biei, Hokkaido, Japan
Picture: amana images inc. / Alamy
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Pink heart shaped flower growing at Manito Park in the City of Spokane in Washington State, USA.
Picture: ALAMY
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A rather prickly heart on a cactus
Picture: imagebroker / Alamy
credit & thanks : telegraph.co.uk
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