Aquatic Woods, day after big rain

Saturday it rained from mid morning to late night. 2.5 inches.
Today, Sunday, I went to see the Woods. Glorious. Clear skies, fresh sunlight playing in the upper branches of all the trees with their new leaves flushing.
I entered the SW Gate with my rubber boots, and walked up to see the water. It now extends to the first big cut bur oak logs.
I walked the southern boundary to the outflow and cleared blockage up from the culvert and several places along the watercourse.
The new clear water everywhere was mostly shallow less than 2 feet deep. I watched dozens of dytiscid diving beetles exploring the expanded habitat looking for prey, mosquito larvae or other protein. There were very young tadpoles (maybe from bullfrogs?) able to feed as herbivores on the refreshed mats of aquatic alga,, or as predators upon mosquito larvae. By the western end of the watercourse I found the black squiggly mosquito larvae, that would be become adult mosquitoes in a week or less. But there were also minnows (Gambusia). My guess is  that they spent the winter in the NW pond and when the fresh rains led the pond to overflow and spread aquatic habitat over much of the rest of the southern woods, the minnows ventured out. They may be / should be a good help against the mosquitoes until the water gets too shallow.
I had seen cranefly adults - like giant mosquitoes for a few weeks, but they had been waiting for a day like this. They were now common and numerous.
The water depth of the two ponds: NW Pond 2.59 feet and East Pond 2.84 feet.
The NW pond had two large old slider turtles sunning on a log on the far side. The East pond had one red-eared slider sunning itself on a floating log.