Bobcat= small front end loader not animal
What's your definition of small equipment? Trowel, shovel Bobcat? A one acre pond about 10 feet deep with a trowel will take a 10 generations of your family. A shovel maybe 5 generations. A Bobcat would probably take 3 to 6 months.
You could build a pond with a bobcat, you wouldn't be able to just dig down though, bobcats don't have enough breakout force to do it efficiently. If your pond site is mostly created by building an earthen dam, then you could certainly do that. The bigger problem would be packing the clay layer with the bobcat, it just doesn't really weigh enough or have the proper drive system, you could always pin up some pigs in the pond to pack the clay, that's how the old farmers used to do it here in Missouri.
Let's not forget the type of soil. Bobcats are scrapers, they don't do well in small areas just scraping about. If your pond will be larger and you don't need great depth, yeah, it will work but as said above, the operator really has to know his/her stuff. Laughing about the pigs, I was just thinking bentonite and cattle! If this is a smaller ornamental pond, will you use a liner?
