Rob Yorke
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robyorke.bsky.social
Rob Yorke
@robyorke.bsky.social
1.5K followers 39 following 240 posts
environmental commentator, curator, moderator, unaffiliated https://robyorke.co.uk/curate-convene-moderate/ | sharing research with a pithy twist and pic🧪
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robyorke.bsky.social
on swifts, insects, sparrows and nest sites

my letter in The Times today with some backstory/context bills.parliament.uk/bills/3946/s...

#ornithology #ecosystems 🧪
a screenshot of letter on swifts from The Times
November 15, 2025 at 9:20 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
Retaining red grouse moor management at lower intensities could mean declines in moorland species [such as golden plover] would be weaker than predicted

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

#moorland #ecology 🧪
a golden plover in the Black Mountains, south Wales
November 12, 2025 at 10:01 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
if we want diversely structured woodlands, then we have to deal with Bambi (via carnivore or copper-tip)

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @britishecologicalsociety.org

#woodland #ecology 🧪
Light and ungulate browsing interact in shaping future woody plant diversity through natural regeneration
Our results provide strong evidence that in the current context of increasing tree mortality and subsequent light availability, roe deer act as a keystone species. It is crucial to implement browsing...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:20 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
urban pressure and agriculture : based on the British beef cattle industry and including this quote “I do not want to see, and we will not have, U.S.-style farming in this country” from a past Defra Sec of State

academic.oup.com/erae/advance...

#agriculture #socialscience 🧪
a Hereford beef cow in a pasture field with a woodland and hillside as a backdrop framed within a timber field gate in Wales an explanatory panel referring to biotech and ecology at the Science Museum's temporary exhibition 'Future of Food', in London an exhibit at the Science Museum's temporary exhibition 'Future of Food', in London asking 'would you eat cell-grown meat?'
November 3, 2025 at 6:08 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
forget honey: bears just want to dig out armies of calorific moths

wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... (pity not open access, as sure to contain a breadth of splendidly obscure grizzly detail)

#wildlife #biology 🧪
TWS Journals
Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in the interior of North America have a wide dietary breadth. One key resource, army cutworm moths (Euxoa auxiliaris), migrate from the central plains to aggregate within...
wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 30, 2025 at 4:16 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
alpine swifts, flocking, on an October evening, in Kerkyra (Corfu Town)

📢 up #ornithology
October 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
cool birds / uncool birds : shaping human experiences of nature and attitudes toward nature www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#ornithology #SocialScience 🧪
picture through a partly obscured binocular lens of a black-winged stilt in a salt pan
October 23, 2025 at 7:35 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) – otherwise known as ‘wait-and-see’ policy rather than spending tons of ineffectual money for dealing with pest invasion of forests

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

#Forest #Ecology 🧪
A mixed stand of conifer trees in the UK
October 13, 2025 at 9:33 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
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
October 4, 2025 at 5:01 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
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
September 27, 2025 at 11:30 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
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 wetland created by beavers in Devon
September 17, 2025 at 10:28 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
The underrated relationship of herbaceous cover on farmland with aerial-feeding birds

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

#farmland #ornithology 🧪
An olive Grove in Sardinia Common Swift in flight
September 10, 2025 at 3:13 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
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🧪
September 4, 2025 at 1:11 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
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)
September 3, 2025 at 12:06 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
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 🧪
apple blossom in an orchard
September 1, 2025 at 11:28 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
‘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)
August 26, 2025 at 5:17 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
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
August 24, 2025 at 8:12 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
Butterflies gain greater benefit from agri-enviro schemes at landscape-scale than from field-scale

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

OR if you want clouds of highly mobile butterflies, join or form a 'farmer cluster' > www.farmerclusters.com

#farmland #biodiversity 🧪
a butterfly in a farmland wild flower margin in a field in England
August 22, 2025 at 11:22 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
"Transition to more sustainable farming systems needs to overcome these economic constraints with new policy interventions"

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

[really] plain English - incentivise farmers to go agroecological

#farmland #socialscience #ecology 🧪
a hoverfly on a flower on a headland in an agricultural landscape in Hertfordshire, UK
August 19, 2025 at 7:04 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
"Contrary to our expectations...."

gotta love a counterintuitive research outcome

"...we found higher bat activity in insecticide-treated plots than in untreated plots"

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#pesticides #trees #wildlife 🧪
a solitary oak tree (quercus robur) within a spruce conifer woodland in winter in the UK
August 14, 2025 at 1:48 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
Innovation, legislation, changes in protein production, an evolving Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and social changes are all pathways to improving biodiversity within agricultural landscapes

a plain language summary
relationalthinkingblog.com/2025/07/16/p...

#farmland #ecology 🧪
Dr Alastair Leake, farmland ecology expert, standing in a field with a tractor on a stubble field at The Allerton Project which researches different farming methods on wildlife and the environment sharing results their research through advisory and educational activities via their 320 hectare demonstration farm based in Leicestershire, United Kingdom
August 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
keep an eye on riparian buffer zones when harvesting forestry

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

#forestry #ecosystems 🧪
a stony fast-moving river in a Scot's pine forest somewhere in Abernethy, Scotland
August 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
a socially nuanced cautionary tale with reference to Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)

#environmental #dialogue #socialscience 🧪
August 6, 2025 at 12:54 PM
robyorke.bsky.social
Cultural integration of invasive species

(alternative framing: one person’s charismatic garden wildlife may be another person’s woodland-destroying pest)

#Wildlife #Conservation #Invasives 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s44...
A grey squirrel on a lawn eating something next to a food container in a London park
July 30, 2025 at 11:47 AM
robyorke.bsky.social
benefits of heterogeneity within farmed arable landscapes with reference to oil seed rape

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#farming #ecology 🧪
a flowering oil seed rape crop with hedgerows and trees with another oil seed rape field in the distance in Worcestershire, UK
July 17, 2025 at 7:23 AM