Image description: A black and blue male fairy wren in a tree, green foilage, and blue sky behind. The blue sky is a similar blue to the bird. The scene is lit by the golden light of the late afternoon sun

Image description: A close up head shot of a silver gull, with its bright red beak open, mid call

Whilst this is not a local only post/community, it is primarily intended for blahaj lemmy members. Top level replies from non blahaj accounts will be removed.

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I want to take the moment to clarify the Blahaj Lemmy position on things, given recent events and the fallout that has followed. This will give people the chance to decide for themselves if blahaj zone lemmy is the right space for them, or if it doesn't meet their needs.

First and foremost, blahaj zone lemmy exists to give a space for queer folk to exist, with their needs explicitly protected as the highest priority, and with a particular focus on the needs of gender diverse folk. Most lemmy instances are not run by trans folk, and whilst many are still inclusive, they don't always prioritise our needs. Others barely consider trans folk, and react only to the most blatant of bigotry.

We are not a political instance, however political communities have a space here, as does any community that is actively protective of the needs of queer and gender diverse folk. Given the impact of politics on gender diverse folk, that means lots of dialogue and strong opinions exist, and as long as those opinions are honestly held, and not bigoted or exclusive, people are welcome to have and express those opinions here.

For what it's worth, I am a member of the Greens Party in Australia. I have no time for the middle ground politics of the Australian Labor party, let alone the right wing beliefs of the Australian Liberal party. Yet a community of queer Labor Party aligned folk would fit on blahaj lemmy, because the parties ideologies, are not explicitly anti queer. A community aligned with the Australian Liberal party likely would not have a place here, unless the goal of the community was to work at actively challenging the anti queer policies of the party.

That being said, political communities (or any other communities) that exist solely to target and take aim at other queer folk have no place here either. The goal of blahaj lemmy is queer inclusion, and a community whose sole goal is division, will be removed.

The downside to this is that as we assume good faith in members and we don't gatekeep or deny access to people because of their pronouns or gender identity, (even when those identities are challenging to many) it is possible for bad faith actors to take advantage of our inclusive policies. Unfortunately, that's just something we are going to have to navigate as it occurs, because I won't let bad faith folk push this instance to defaulting to exclusion or gatekeeping the validity of someone's identity. I will respect a trolls pronouns even as I ban them, because to not do so, normalises the idea that pronouns are something that are earned by good behaviour, or that other people have a say in the validity of another person's identity and pronouns.

So that's where we stand. Hopefully this will help people decide for themselves whether or not this is the right instance for them.

The2024 fediverse canvas has started, and it's busier than last year! We need your help placing pixels and making Shonky come to life!

@totally_notAcat@lemmy.blahaj.zone has created a template for us to use!

Get those pixels happening!

Image description: A silhouette of a vulture, wings spread wide, circling on a thermal. The silhouette of the bird is strongly contrasted against the misty white of the waterfall behind it

#bird #dailybird #avesArgentinas #Iguazu #iguazufalls #vulture

If you're not aware, the fediverse canvas is a collaborative canvas, where fediverse users can login with a fediverse account, and place a single pixel every few minutes. The project will run for a few days, and at the end, the we will have a giant collaborative canvas!

This was the 2023 lemmy effort! https://cdn.sc07.company/canvas/2023/finished.png

For 2024, the entire fediverse can join, not just lemmy!

The canvas site can be found here https://canvas.fediverse.events/. It's not open yet, but we can create and test templates, ready for go live!

You can find more details about the 2024 fediverse canvas project here https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/14077575

I'm keen to see our new mascot Shonky get some visibility! For those of you who are graphically inclined, we can pre-emptively create a template, so when the event kicks off, we can hit the ground running! Shonky's image files can be found here https://github.com/blahaj-zone/shonky. If someone creates a template, please share the link!

Image description: A close cropped shot of a masked lapwing standing on a grass lawn.

I've been using flickr on and off for 20 years now, so my flickr time stream gives me a nice snapshot of how my photography has changed and improved over the years.

In theory, I've got all of my old photos available, but on flickr, the ones I posted are the ones I considered my best at the time. So my flickr timestream gives me an perspective on my photography that the 10's of thousands of photos in my home collection does not.

It's been really interesting going back through my old photos and seeing the change first hand...

Image description: A kookaburra sitting on a branch in a tree above the photographer. A blurred apartment building is visible in the distance behind the foliage of the tree

Thanks to the lovely Heatherhorns (https://trello.com/b/8dvKmvtc/commissions) we have a new icon! We'll be updating the instance icon soon!

So, with the new fediverse canvas project just around the corner, it's time for our new shonk to represent!

#bird #birds #AustralianBirds #duck #DailyBird

Image description: A close up of a paddling Pacific Black Duck

I run a raspberry pi that identifies birds by their song, and records time, date, and species etc in an SQLite3 database.

The rpi app comes with some basic reports, but I'm wanting to expand on them, so that I can show monthly/yearly trends etc.

On windows at work, I'd use something like Power BI, but a) it's windows and b) it's overkill for my current needs.

I've only recently moved entirely to linux, so I'm not really sure of what the linux alternatives are, and I'm looking for suggestions :)