An Armchair Tick and an HDD Lifer

An armchair tick refers to "an addition without leaving one's home, typically as a result of a taxonomic change." In plain english, it means that a new species was created by splitting it from an existing one (taxonomic change).  Thus a birder is able to add a new species to his list without actually going out to bird.  I have previously experienced this in 2014.  On February 8th of that year, I birded at Bangkong Kahoy and one of my 12 (😲) lifers that day was the White-throated Kingfisher.  Later that year, I saw the same bird at Penang, Malaysia.  I included it among the list of species I saw/photographed that day but I did not count it as a lifer because I had already seen it previously at Bangkong Kahoy.  A few months after this, the White-throated Kingfisher in the Philippines was split and declared a new species by one of the organizations that maintain World Bird Lists (I think it was Clements).  This new endemic species was called the Brown-breasted Kingfisher. Because of this, I gained a new lifer, the Brown-breasted KF (which I saw in BK, DRT, and Baras). However, since I also saw the White-throated Kingfisher in another country, I kept said bird in my list.

About three weeks ago, I learned from fellow Palawan birder, Erickson Tabayag that there were three new recognized Palawan endemics, (this time, I think IOC did the split).  One of these is the Palawan Crow, split from Slender-billed Crown.  This became an armchair tick for me. However, it was not an addition to my overall lifer count because Palawan Crow only replaced Slender-billed Crow in the list unless of course I can find the latter in any of my trip reports outside of Palawan. Yes, I make a list of the birds I saw after every sortie.  It is kept in a small black notebook (now two notebooks), and later copied to an excel file. I wonder which birding mentor I copied this from... hmmm...

Anyway, the prospect of a potential lifer led me to scour my birding notebooks and hard drives all the way back to my pre-birder days (2010), in search of a record, any record, of the Slender-billed Crow seen or photographed outside of Palawan.  But nada, zip, zero.  I sent all the photos I could find to Maia Tanedo, Djop Tabaranza, and Rommel Cruz, but all of them IDéd these as Large-billed Crow. 😡😡😡.  The main problem was, when we bird, we do not usually pay attention to the crows, so no photos, not even listed.  😢😢😢 

Last night's search led me to bird photos from my family's November 2018 Japan trip.  While checking the internet if the Slender-billed Crow occurs in Japan (it doesn't), I learned that there were two species of crow in that country, namely, Large-billed Crow (Ssp japonensis), and Carrion Crow.  This prompted another frantic search in my Japan files if I was able to capture a Carrion Crow.  Towards midnight, I found a photo of a crow that looked different. Not wanting to disturb any Filipino birder (due to the late hour), I decided to message Rob Hutchinson, thinking that he was still in the UK (which is seven hours behind).  He replied a little past 1am saying that he was back in Manila (patay!).  I apologized for waking him up but he said he was experiencing jetlag.  So I asked him to confirm the ID of these four:

Shinjuku Park, Tokyo, Nov 4, 2018

Kasai Rinkai Park, Tokyo, Nov 5, 2018

Hida Takayama, Nov 2, 2018

Hida Takayama, Nov 3, 2018

As expected the bird in the first three photos were Large-billed Crows on account of their beak and the glossy blue-black shoulder.  I pointed out that the bird in the last photo had a different beak (shorter and smaller) and that the feathers seemed different. (But I also knew that my eyes may be playing tricks on me and I am seeing things that aren't).  Rob's reply came after several agonizing minutes... (probably just seconds but the suspense was killing me....) ....

"I agree on the 4th bird, the bill is smaller and more pointed, it has feathering extending out into the top of the bill and the head is more neatly rounded, I think that is Carrion Crow" 

Yehey!!!   And with that I got to add a tick to my over-all life list.  Meanwhile, the search for the Slender-billed Crow (and other lifers), shall continue in the real world.

Thank you to all who helped me add this lifer -  from Erickson to Maia, Djop, Rommel, and finally, Rob!

Note: in researching for this blogpost, I looked at the different Bird Lists (IOC, Clement, HBW, Birdlife) and true enough these lists do not exactly match.  I realize that for consistency, one should only follow one list.  I also realized that my personal list does not adhere to just one (hahaha).  But that is another issue to tackle in the future.  For now, I will bask in the joy of adding a lifer from my second favorite country while confined to my mancave at home.