cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27616218

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/25225302

Cat Marfell, the volunteer administrator at Gloucestershire Toads on Roads, said there are now more than 35 patrols taking place at spots across the county.

Migration season, which occurs any time between January and April, sees toads, frogs, and newts travel to water to breed.

"It's been quite warm and we were out patrolling in February, and then it's not really been warm again until Wednesday," Ms Marfell said.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21825039

A chicken has been given a hi-vis jacket by its owner to ensure it stays safe when crossing the road.

The pet bird, called Billie Jean, was kitted out with the luminous vest to make her more easily seen by drivers.

It follows concerns that the rescue chicken was beginning to wander too far away from her home at The Railway Inn, in the village of Cam, Gloucestershire.

Landlady Sharron Brimble said Billie Jean had become a favourite among the pub’s regulars – prompting a spike in jukebox plays of Michael Jackson’s hit song of the same name.

The 60-year-old said: “People do really love her. She’s quite a character. She wanders around the garden, which is a pub garden, so there’s no way we can fence it all off.

“She started going up the path and now goes across into people’s gardens. We started to get a lot of comments from people saying she was going to get hit by a car.”

However, to Ms Bri

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19554204

A shoplifter has been banned from wearing wigs after attempting to disguise herself while committing thefts on numerous occasions.

Hannah Roberts of Nettleton Road, Gloucester, was handed a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court earlier this month.

Roberts, 33, repeatedly ignored a ban by the City Safe Scheme from entering any member shops in Gloucester, the court heard.

Although she tried to get around the ban by wearing a variety of wigs, her distinctive neck tattoo meant she was recognisable to shop staff in the city.

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Under the CBO, Roberts has been banned from entering Gloucester city centre and shops participating in the Gloucester City Safe scheme.

She is also prohibited from wearing a wig or hairpiece designed to change her appearance while entering any retail premises.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18925844

A children’s soft play centre has removed its hanging “body bag” Halloween decorations after concerns were raised by parents.

Rugrats and Halfpints in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, has apologised over the objects resembling human corpses covered in black plastic.

Some appeared to be wrapped with tape bearing the words “caution” and “danger” and were hanging upside down from poles adjoining one of the soft play structures, according to pictures posted online.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18313826

"We were on a camping holiday in Coleford for a week in August last year. It is the perfect location to watch deer and see the wild boar and the humbugs. One of the days we were there, we had been out for a good couple of hours and had seen deer and the wild boar and little humbugs, and it got to about 9pm and we decided to head back to the camp site.

"We were driving passed the fenced area by the recycling centre in Coleford and we seen a lynx jump into the road. In one bound it jumped across the road.

"There is no question about it, the animal was clearly a lynx. You could tell by the tufts on its ears, the green eye shine and it was dark tan and tall as a Labrador.

"The definition of the muscles on the animal as well. It had muscular legs and had no problem leaping eight or ten feet across the road.

"It was a lynx, you could see plain as day."

Gareth understand people may be sceptical abou

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18243363

A group of wild boar have been spotted wandering past a pub.

The footage was captured outside the Golden Lion in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, on 2 October.

Boar were hunted to extinction 700 years ago, but became established again in the Forest of Dean in the 1990s.

Forestry Commission wildlife rangers monitor numbers in the Forest of Dean each spring and carry out culls, if necessary, to keep the target population to about 400.

The boars have been known to go hunting for food in the local neighbourhoods when foraging becomes harder in the nearby forest.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17533303

Two friends are causing a stir completing a six-day tandem bike ride completely naked. Neil Cox, 36, and his friend, J Antic, 25, set off on Saturday on a naked 260-mile journey from Gloucester to Land's End, Cornwall.

The pair are both naturists - meaning they like to spend time in the nude - and wanted to see some natural beauty across the south west of England. Neil and J have cycled naked through Gloucester to Bristol, taken a trip to the Mendips and stopped off in Glastonbury.

The pair have spent some nights camping and others in hotels or B&Bs, and even took some nude trips out shopping or to drink in bars while on their journey. Now in Cornwall, they're on the last leg of their cycle - and say the response to them so far has been "overwhelmingly positive".

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"People on social media always have opinions - but we haven't had many negative reactions. People in Glastonbury were overwhelmingly

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17070663

"A Gloucestershire council has declared a major incident and is working with GCHQ to assess the full extent of a cyber attack by “hostile actors”. Tewkesbury Borough Council shut down all of the services they provide online yesterday (Wednesday, September 4) after they identified “hostile actors” within their IT systems.

Council leaders say the full extent of the cyber security breach and the motive of the attack is currently unknown. But they are redeploying staff to towns and large villages across the Borough to ensure the most vulnerable have access to the services they rely on.

Chief Executive Alistair Cunningham said: “With all our systems shut down, our main focus is around the vulnerable people we serve in this community.

"We are currently dealing with an IT incident. Our systems have been compromised.

“We were alerted to unknown user accounts accessing our systems yesterday afternoon. We are clearly at

A student has started a project to reclaim some of her county's old language.

Univeristy of Gloucestershire graduate, Holly Williams-Richards said she became "enamoured" by some of the traditional words she found during her research.

Some of these words, such as "flittermouse" - which means bat - are being displayed in a public art trail to introduce them to new generations.

They can be found in places like the Oxstalls Campus at the university and across Gloucester city centre.

A light aircraft has landed on a main road in Gloucestershire.

The county's police force said it had received reports after the craft landed on the A419 in Frampton Mansell, some five miles from Stroud.

The incident is said to have taken place at around 4.45pm on Tuesday.

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"There were two occupants on board who will be assessed by the ambulance service, and it is understood that no other vehicles were involved," a spokesperson for the force said.

One witness told Gloucestershire Live that it looked like the plane had "stalled and nose-dived into the main road".