I swear, I've had the best morning so far of the whole of 2014 so far. The pond is full of life!

I went out this morning around 8am to check out the pond after being told that my friends and the construction workers (buillding a house after the old one was demolished) have seen otters in it (o.O I had no clue that otters even lived in the area, nevermind the pond!!). While I didn't see any otters, the stuff I DID see?? Holy crap!

For one thing, we have a muskrat in the pond!! I've NEVER seen one around here, before, EVER! It seems to be pretty young as it appears to be less than or around a foot and a half in length, including the tail (which is laterally flattened, which is a really cool feature ^^), but it was swimming around quite close to me, within 15 feet, and doesn't seem too perturbed by the Bobcat mini-bulldozers and skillsaws and such, of which I'm pretty surprised by.

Also something I found that was really exciting, was that I could actually SEE fish in the water, seemingly healthy and good adult sizes, both bluegill and bass ^w^!! I had brought my binoculars out, and was having a blast just watching them just under the surface. We had some good rain yesterday, which drove a lot of surficial algae off to the edges of the pond, yielding a decent visibility range to the water's surface that wasn't covered. I did spot two little dead bluegill, but I assume that they are some of the same fish I saw a few days ago. Why they haven't been consumed though, is a little beyond me (I imagine that most animals have no interest in already dead prey, especially with the risk of infection from decomposing flesh, but I'm only speculating).

I also saw my first turtle poke its head out of the water near the middle of the pond, holding its mouth open. I can't tell if it was taking in oxygen, or what, but it did it twice, putting its head back underwater in between sessions. I couldn't quite tell what that behavior indicated.

But, but but but but but!!! There was something in that water that I had NEVER seen before. It was like a massive submarine in the pond - something that was more than twice the length of any bass I saw, swimming along very slowly, coasting along, out about 20 feet or so. It went under the algae after a minute, but I swear, I think it was a massive near 2-foot long Grass Carp. XD Those things can get up to 8 feet in length!! If something THAT big is still alive, the pond may not be in as dire health as I had once feared.
Seeing that carp, though, something that I've only heard of rumored to be in the pond, was FREAKING COOL!! I was almost jumping up and down in giddiness, grinning ear to ear XD

As an aside, near the end of my time out there, two Canada Geese came in to rest at the far end of the pond. Hearing their feathers whirr in the wind was quite fascinating - they flew in not 20 feet away from me on their landing approach. It makes me wonder if they may consider nesting here, as others have, but with the construction, I wouldn't be surprised if they would be far too disturbed to nest down here.

So yeah - with that and posting up my Field Sparrow studies from yesterday, It's been an AMAZING day. XD I've never been here in TN in April before, so all of this is so new to me. I don't care, though - it's all still freaking awesome. I am in a really really wonderful place. <3