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Message: <blockquote data-quote="halftwo" data-source="post: 1818776" data-attributes="member: 45720">The Pair!Hi U,Like you I saw my local bird - but found both for the first time this year...Warm sun and cold wind: warmed back and frozen fingers.Blue sky and black clouds: breezy afternoon. A walk around the site - plenty of Swifts and hirundines  - and even a late Wheatear atop a telegraph pole!Suddenly they were both there - rising in the unseasonally cold wind - and the wind was drifting them my way. A flock of Swifts and House martins rose above them as they climbed to several hundred feet - circling quickly over my head.The relative size easily seen now they were together, he led the way. Then from way up the male began a rapid zigzag descent, flick-flacking a twisting dive on half-closed wings. She followed in a less dramatic fashion, though keeping pace. There was a feeling of a display, a show of prowess, until they reached the treetops, where unslowing, they seemed to land at the back of a copse.I made my earthbound, trudging way to where I thought they were. I found one in a tree top! It was the female. She watched as I moved away, but as I reached a couple of hundred yards she flew - and he joined her as they disappeared low behind the copse. Lost. For the first time I know that both have survived their African odyssey and returned, perhaps, for another season in Cheshire.</blockquote>