May 9, 2010 - Bluegill Redds

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

As water temperatures warm in ponds and shallow lakes, small, bowl-shaped depressions appear along the water’s edge. These are bluegill nests. Male bluegills create the nests by fanning the mud away from a gravel or sandy bottom with their fins creating bowl-shaped depressions. As many as 50 of these nest sites make up a bluegill colony. Male and female bluegills circle each other over a nest. When the female releases her eggs, the pair comes to rest above the nest. Once he fertilizes the eggs, the male drives off the female and stands guard over the nest, defending it against other males and potential predators. After three to five days the eggs hatch and the male protects the new young bluegills for a few more days before they go off on their own leaving an empty bowl behind on the pond bottom.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.