Two Sunfish

     Around the end of May and into June over the years, I have occasionally watched the interesting spawning of attractive bluegill sunfish in the clear, shallow, sun-filled waters of ponds in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Male bluegills made little colonies of circular nests on the bottoms of those human-made impoundments by swishing away silt down to the gravel or sand underneath with their tails and bodies.  And male sunfish are territorial, guarding their nests against invasion by other male sunfish and other fish.  
     Female sunfish come to the males of their choice to spawn thousands of eggs in the males' nurseries.  Each male may have two, three or more partners, but one at a time.  Each male and the female that came to him swim side by side and round and round over the nest, as she drops many,  adhesive eggs into it and he spreads sperm over the eggs, fertilizing them.  When finished spawning, each female leaves the nursery, only to be replaced by another female, sooner or later.  Meanwhile, each male guards the eggs in his gravelly cradle from fish, crayfish and other critters that would consume them until those eggs hatch into schools of tiny fry.
     The small, young sunfish swim in dense schools in shallow water where they avoid being eaten by bass and larger sunfish.  Adult sunnies, which can be close to ten inches long, hang out among water vegetation in deeper water where they hunt their food animals.  Being larger, they are not as likely to be eaten by even larger fish, and so get away with living in deeper water.    
     With the arrival of spring, some of us think about fish and fishing.  And bluegill and pumpkinseed sunfish are two abundant, beautiful kinds of fish in the ponds, lakes and slow-moving parts of waterways in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Sunfish are often called panfish because they have flat, round bodies, like a pan.  There bodies are also shaped like a human hand. 
     Bluegills and pumpkinseeds prefer warmer, clear water, choked with aquatic plants and sunken logs and stumps, places where they can hide from predators, and ambush prey species, including aquatic insects, minnows, scuds, pond snails and small crayfish, plus water plants.  Some of the wildlife that catch and eat sunfish are otters, mink, large-mouthed bass, snapping turtles, northern water snakes, a variety of herons, belted kingfishers, ospreys and bald eagles.
     Bluegills are the better known of these sunfish.  Today they are all over Pennsylvania, but they were introduced to this state as a fighting, but easy-to-catch fish, which is good for beginning fishermen, especially children.  However, bluegills are aggressive fish and could push out pumpkinseeds where the two species live together. 
     Adult bluegills, particularly spawning males, are attractive with olive-brown backs and flanks, with darker streaks on the flanks.  Their bellies are yellow to light-orange and their gills are light-blue with a black gill flap at the rear of each gill.
     Adult pumpkinseeds, especially spawning males, are even prettier than bluegills.  This is a colorful sunfish native to Pennsylvania and much of eastern North America.  Pumpkinseeds are olive-brown, with vertical blue-green lines and sprinklings of red-orange spots on their backs and sides.  Their bellies are reddish-orange to yellow.  And their black gill flaps are small, each one tipped with orange-red.  These sunnies are also scrappers when hooked, making fishing for them, and bluegills, the more exciting.       
     Watch the clear, plant-choked waters of human-made impoundments this spring and summer for the attractive and interesting bluegills and pumpkinseeds, young and mature.  You might see them spawning and/or feeding.  And by looking closely or using binoculars, you can see their beautiful colors without catching them on a fish hook.