We started Monday 8 October with more birding in the Cardones National Park, but at a higher elevation than on the previous day. Here we had a field breakfast and enjoyed photographing some excellent birds in the gentle early morning light. The highlight was undoubtedly seeing a Tawny-throated Dotterel, which our guide had missed on his two previous visits to this location. However, we also got excellent shots of Andean Lapwing, Short-billed Pipit and Least Seedsnipe.
Driving to Salta we retraced some of the route from the day before and on the way we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant where we had breaded chicken with a cheese topping, a dish that we encountered several times on this trip.
After lunch we continued our drive to Salta, where we were staying at the Hotel Selva Montana. We arrived mid-afternoon so we had time to do some birding before dinner. We were extremely lucky in that we had a Toco Toucan in a tree just in front of the entrance to the hotel and it remained there long enough for us all to get good photographs. Around the hotel we also had good views of a Cream-backed Woodpecker.
We had dinner at a nearby pizza restaurant and then did some night birding at the El Huayco reserve, which conveniently was also close to our hotel. Photographing birds at night is never easy, but we were pleased with the shots we got of the Montane Forest Screech-Owl and Scissor-tailed Nightjar.
