`Canoeing and birdwatching on Caddo Lake

Canoeing at Caddo Lake, we spotted great blue herons, great egrets, and pileated woodpeckers among the bald cypresses and Spanish moss.… Read More

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January 18, 2026

Our rental cabin at Caddo Lake in East Texas had canoes available for guests. We paddled a few times during our November visit, spotting great blue herons, great egrets, and woodpeckers among the bald cypresses and Spanish moss.

This is where you push off, at Spatterdock‘s lake access. Where’s the lake, you might ask? It’s there — under a floating blanket of giant salvinia, the invasive plant imperiling the survival of Caddo. See Part 1 of my series about Caddo for more info about the battle against giant salvinia (scroll to the end).

You slide your canoe into the greenery and paddle like you’re trying to get through oatmeal. Eventually you reach open water.

Nearby is Government Ditch, a water lane dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1800s to facilitate steamboat traffic, back before the railroad took over for the cotton trade.

It’s a hallway of cypresses festooned with gray Spanish moss, and it took my breath away the first time I saw it.

Those cypresses were mostly bald already, but fall color showed on other trees taking root among their knees. The “knees” being poky root extensions that stick up out of the water, for what reason, no one quite knows.

Golden leaves and Spanish moss