Argentina 2 – What’s on The Birding Agenda?

As were driving out from a successful morning birding at Salinas Grande, Ross looked over at me and said so matter-of-factly, “I’ll have to check but I think it’s tonight that we look for Chaco Owl.” He said it as if it was an event we had marked on the calendar. Turns out it was tomorrow rather than tonight but I still had to laugh because it wasn’t until he got to the word “owl” that I remembered I was on a birding trip and our only outings involve searching for endemics!

Salinas Grande

Salinas Grande is a gigantic salt pan. It’s quite the sight to look out into the distance and see nothing but dried salt. In the vicinity there are a number of targets and even one bird, Salinas Monjita, that is endemic to the area. Our morning birding the roadside to the entrance of the salt pan was enjoyable and we heard dozens of Elegant Crested-Tinamou calling from close proximity on either side of the road amongst the grasses and sparce trees. But it wasn’t until we walked in on one and flushed it that we actually saw it.
A Brushland Tinamou crossed the road in front of us but we never once heard one call. Funny how that works. Other birds like Many-colored Chaco Finch, Crested Gallito, Short-billed Canastero, and Lesser Shrike-Tyrant were nice to see as we birded the dry scrubby habitat on our way in to Salinas Grande.

Standing at the edge of the salt pan was very scenic, both because of the landscape views in front of us and because of the pair of Salinas Monjitas that practically put on a show. We were happy to have point blank views of this highly range restricted endemic.

Ross and I concluded that time must move fast when you are travelling with a baby even if you don’t feel like you are moving that slow. Or maybe the old adage “time flies when you are having fun” applies here. We looked at the clock and it was already 10:15am, aka time to go, despite still missing a few birds that could be found in the area. Luckily all of the birds we hadn’t seen yet could be seen elsewhere. Because we were traveling with an individual who still needed two solid naps per day, we liked to travel to new locations during naptime so we had a bit of a birding deadline to meet all morning. Naptime was now upon us. We strapped the baby into his car seat, and started on the 4+ hour drive to Quebrada Los Sosa, our destination for the afternoon and Roger slept almost the entire way there.

Quebrada Los Sosa – Rufous Throated Dipper

The Yungus forest we drove through had to be among the most picturesque places I’ve ever seen. The mountainous slopes on the windward side were lush and green with the clearest stream water flowing through. The mossy hillsides looked as if a Hobbit might emerge just around any given bend. We were searching for the most quintessential bird of a northwest Argentina trip, Rufous-throated Dipper. This small bird is found along streams. We walked a few areas and soon, the small, grey bird with a vibrant rufous throat bobbed between a trio of granite stones in the middle of the stream. We were fortunate to have amazing views and watch as a pair tended to a nest neatly tucked into a grass-covered cliff hanging over the stream.

When you are quiet and do your best to blend into the stones it’s possible to get extremely close to these confiding little stream hoppers, as Ross did when he climbed down the steep bank, sat as if he were a statue and seemingly disappeared amongst the rocky habitat. The birds didn’t mind his presence and continued to hunt for bugs and bring them back to the nest while Ross had a front row seat.
(I don’t mean to throw all photographers under the same bus, but knowing that some have displayed questionable ethics around nesting birds, we omitted the GPS pin for the nest from our eBird checklist.)

As John Muir famously said, the mountains are calling and I must go. We decided to spend all the next morning with the mountains. The habitat that surrounded us was completely different from the Yungus forest we had passed through the night before and yet once again, the wispy grassy hillsides still looked as if a Hobbit might soon emerge from their home.

We were just outside of Tafi del Valle and were stopping along various gullies or “quebradas” to look for a number of localized species including Tucuman Mountain Finch and Bare-eyed Ground-dove. At one point we put Roger on our backs (he promptly fell asleep) and we hiked up along a stream through the mountains in search of Scribble-tailed Canastero. This was a bird we had seen already, in fact we were using Ross’s stellar recording from a previous trip to Peru to call one in. Argentina was neat like that, we were seeing birds we hadn’t seen in almost a decade and yet getting lifers left and right, like when we saw the Scribble-tailed Canastero and then a lifer Ornate Tinamou on the same hike.

All day we had bird target after target (Monte’s Yellow Finch, Patagonian Mockingbird, Hellmayr’s Pipit) and for whatever reason, it felt “birdy” all day long. We finished the evening outside of Amaicha del Valle where we had Sandy Gallito and Black-crowned Monjita.

We haven’t quite figured out how to go owling with a 1 year old, but we had that Chaco Owl event to get to tonight. We do try to not stress too much over naps/bedtime but it’s hard to do because everyone with kids knows how hard it is to deal with an overtired baby.

We arrived near the Ruinas de Quilmes and fed Roger a picnic dinner (something we would do far more often than I mention) and watched as thousands of Burrowing Parrots flew over our heads on their way to a roosting site. After dark we started out search for the owl and it wasn’t long before we heard a bird respond to the tape. Luckily Roger had already fallen asleep in the car, so we quietly exited and had wonderful views of Chaco Owl while Roger snoozed away. Owling with a baby made easy.

Sometimes I think the most helpful information for people planning on going on a trip can be where to sleep and where to eat. Pins for the birds is helpful and all, but that’s something easy to figure out. The town of Tafi del Valle is chalk full of places to stay, but we stayed at Cabañas Entre Montañas at -26.866028, -65.698798 and it was perfect. Also, it was only 19,000 pesos so very reasonable and had full kitchen and dining area, separate bedroom, outside patio seating, and a large open space next to the fireplace. The owner, Pablo was such a nice guy and perfectly understood our mediocre Spanish.

This birding took place October 1, 2023
HERE is an eBird checklist from Salinas Grande and HERE’s one for the Dipper