Where have you been?

Just had an email from local bird photographer Kev Joynes with these two cracking photographs of Choughs taken near Llanrhystud recently.

The two birds are brother (C7) and sister (C4) from a brood of 4 ringed near Cwmtydu on 17th May 2011. Both have only one previous record each. C4 was photographed by Janet Baxter at Pantyralled on 1st April 2012 and the other was seen by Dave Lamacraft at Ynys Lochtyn on 27th May 2012. Most records of Chough flocks are followed up very quickly to check for ringed birds and most known nests and roost sites are monitored regularly so where have these two been hanging out the rest of the time I wonder? They should enter the breeding population this coming spring so we look forward to seeing where they will settle.

Many thanks to Kev for reporting and allowing me to reproduce them here and sincere apologies, I know you'd much rather they weren't ringed! They might have been better photos but they wouldn't have been half as interesting!