Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 23h

a 'Nature Notebook' column published in The Times re-blogged

on dusk woodland, woodcock and estuaries filling with winter birdlife

robyorke.co.uk/2025/10/a-wo...

A woodland detective story in the dying year - Rob Yorke

Nature Notebook – The Times (first published Dec 2014) The grass has turned brown, folding in tussocks around bare-leafed saplings in my wood. I saw my first woodcock of the year on a late evening wal...

robyorke.co.uk

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 6d

solar parks [farms] have the potential to combine biodiversity conservation on areas not covered by solar panels, but more insight is needed in design

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#solar #ecology #farmland 🧪

solar panels in a sheep grazed field in Sussex

4 23

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 7d

reposted link

my scratch is how planning authorities interpret the strict definition* of whether planning permission is required or not

/ pragmatically enabling or precautionary principle stymieing //

*any engineering operations, including moving of soil, spoil etc

An aquatic plant in a lake in the uplands

1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 7d

the link reposted robyorke.co.uk/2015/07/a-pr...

pic : slow worm not related to the pond!

A precautionary pond - Rob Yorke

The local authority voice was apologetic, ‘I’m sorry but once in the planning system, we have to insist on further ecology surveys – even if the application is to enlarge a pond for wildlife.’ My clie...

robyorke.co.uk

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 7d

though I would argue that Jake is articulating in-field land ‘sharing and sparing’: by increasing crop productivity within the ‘tractor sprayer designed’ area this enables sparing of land for ‘wild’ nature elsewhere

1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 7d

though technically, strictly speaking…https://robyorke.co.uk/2015/07/a-precautionary-pond/

2 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 14d

my latest letter published in The Times today on solar and nuclear power is really about continuing an ability to have these contested conversations, without fear or favour

#environmental #dialogue

plus a contextualising 90sec vlog
youtu.be/9SY1uH5mCIE

a copy of a letter in The Times newspaper on solar and nuclear power

1 3

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 15d

I sense that we might have airbrushed some of the history about how much we know about birds…. an extraordinary account! #ornithogy

1 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 17d

"would allow statutory undertakers such as power and water companies, railways and highways to do what they like in national landscapes..."

incorrect from Charles Clover, as primary legislation such as the Water Industry Act 1991 unaffected (oh, and rural ppl in Nat Parks still require water)

picture of a national park sign with fields and hills in the background

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 19d

Interesting paper

I do have a wry smile about the innate fear about planting non-native conifers in the UK when there were quite a few ‘native’ conifer species ‘back in the day’ (as in the Jurassic one]

1 1 3

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 20d

how easy is the process of getting planning permission for these works?

1 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 23d

gotcha!

my punt would be, as most green spaces are within 15 minutes, the higher number of post-pandemic people who have been working from home, just want/need to get out more!

1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 24d

check habitat suitability before reintroduction undertaken - with ref to pine martens in England and Wales (apply also to beavers)

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#wildlife #conservation 🧪

a mixed tree species forest in mid Wales in autumn

1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 24d

"Reasons for visiting a green and natural space
Getting fresh air and physical health and exercise were the main reasons..."

I may be pedantic, but the survey is about 'access to green and natural spaces' - less about 'access to nature' per say?!

walkers in the Brecon Beacons with a view of lakes, woodlands, fields and open hillside

1 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 26d

“Agrivoltaic is the dual use of land for agriculture and solar energy generation and can therefore be an opportunity….”

#farmland #biodiversity

1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · 27d

‘subtle impacts of climate change mitigation strategies on malfunctioning of prey–predator dynamics across ecosystems’

OR
>rice farming agro-ecosystems seek to save water
>which results in fewer wetland-ecosystem semi-aquatic inverts
>so jumping spiders jump less ofter

#farmland #ecology 🧪

1 4

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Sep 10

The section headed ‘discussion’, already gives you the credit for your farming practices (as you can see from the extract below)

Extract from research on birds and farmland

1 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Sep 10

The underrated relationship of herbaceous cover on farmland with aerial-feeding birds

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#farmland #ornithology 🧪

1 1 4

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Sep 4

I shall ask them

1 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Sep 4

Range of lethal and non-lethal practices by the National Trust to manage grey squirrels and roe deer to conserve trees

via government case study

www.gov.uk/government/c...

#wildlife #management #woodland🧪

1 4

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Sep 3

Nature (trail) cameras 'can greatly inflate nest predation rates'

especially with canny curious corvids in open landscapes

wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

#wildlife #conservation #ornithology 🧪

a raven in flight about to alight on the ground (in this case the summit of Pen y Fan mountain in the Brecon Beacons, South Wales, UK)

3 6

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Sep 1

wild bees diversity more important for pollinating productive fruit yields than managed honeybees (further management optimisation required for the latter)
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#foodproduction #ecology #bees 🧪

2 2 7

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Aug 26

‘rural Britain is changing faster than its cities’ - The Economist (free to view share)

www.economist.com/britain/2025...

my pics, with alt text

#SocialSciences #Countryside 🧪

an old hedgerow, with grassed area and two new builds on a recent housing estate, Newton Leys, south of Milton Keynes

a picture of a sign saying ‘no to battery storage’ outside a house in a village, Granborough, Buckinghamshire

a plough installed vertically and overgrown at the base, at a farm in Hertfordshire (some may recognise it as the site for Groundswell, a regenerative agriculture annual festival-style event)

2 1 7

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Aug 25

esp martin cooked pizza in house ovens

1 1

Rob Yorke @robyorke.bsky.social · Aug 24

a blog of what I wrote in @thetimes.com 15 years ago

trigger warning : may not be suitable viewing for nuance-free social media platforms

robyorke.co.uk/2025/08/putt...

#environmental #dialogue

"Putting the needs of wildlife before people is just bats" - Rob Yorke

A Thunderer published in The Times, Tuesday August 10 2010 – published ad verbum, bar headings, links and postscript below. A thriving countryside needs people as much as it needs a diversity of speci...

robyorke.co.uk

1 2