Archive for May 13th, 2011

Caddo Lake Wildlife

Friday, May 13th, 2011

This is Passport to Texas

Abundant water and huge old cypress trees makes Caddo Lake ideal wildlife habitat.

06—Caddo Lake is the mother load for several species of neo-tropical migrants.

Cliff Shackelford is a non-game ornithologist stationed in Nacogdoches. The prothonotary warbler, northern parula, and yellow-throated warbler flock to Caddo.

17—A dawn chorus of those warblers singing is quite a neat thing. It’s good to be out in a boat, a canoe, a kayak, something where you can get out in the middle of the swamp to hear these things—they’re just loud and explosive. It’s really refreshing to hear things like that singing in the morning.

But warblers aren’t the only creatures that make use of Caddo’s resources. Vanessa Adams is the area biologist at the Caddo Lake Wildlife Management Area. And says you’ll find white-tailed deer and…

14—We unfortunately do have feral hog, but that is a huntable population, of course. We see several species of ducks. You’ll see wood duck year round. We get mallards; we have other unusual ducks. In fact, we’ve had black-bellied whistling ducks nest here.

That’s our show… with support from the Wildlife Restoration Program… providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.