In the late morning of 4 October we arrived at the high elevation (2,014 m) town of Tafi del Valle, where we were going to stay for two nights, giving us time to explore a couple of important and contrasting birding sites in the area. We stayed near the centre of town at the Hotel Waynay Killa, which is in the Tafi valley, with the rooms having impressive views of the mountains on either side of the valley.
After lunch we set off to do some birding around Lake La Angostura, which is a scenic mountain reservoir a few kilometres south of Tafi del Valle. There were plenty of good birds on the edge of the water and on the lake itself, but inevitably many were quite distant making photography difficult. We were surprised by how cold and windy it was, with a strong wind blowing down the valley.
After a chilly spell at the lake we moved to a more sheltered wooded area south of the lake and saw some passerines before we returned to the hotel for dinner.
On our full day in the Tafi del Valle area (5 October) we set off early, driving north out of the town along road 307 towards the El Infiernillo pass in the high desert environment.
It was still very gloomy when we started birding and photography was difficult, but we managed to get a record shots of Black-winged Ground Dove and White-browed Chat-Tyrant.
There was plenty of bird activity this early in the day and we soon came across two of the target birds of our trip, the White-browed Tapaculo and Tucaman Mountain Finch, which are both endemic to Northwest Argentina. As the morning progressed we saw a succession of excellent birds, many of which, such as the Andean Flicker, Hellmayr’s Pipit and Patagonian Mockingbird, were lifers for us.
After an outstanding morning of birding we returned to Tafi del Valle for lunch where we ate at the A.T.E.P. restaurant.
Once we’d finished lunch we returned to the hotel for a rest after our early morning start and once efreshed, we drove north again for for birding in the direction of El Infiernillo pass. In this session we got more lifers, including an Andean Swift.
