SPACEPHOTOS

(01/20/2000) -- Willets gather around a plant in the shallow waters of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which shares a boundary with Kennedy Space Center. Willets are best identified in flight by their black-and-white wing pattern; on the ground by their thick black bills and gray legs. They breed in southern Canada, the United States and the West Indies, wintering from the southern U.S. to central South America. The 92,000-acre refuge is a habitat for more than 330 species of birds, 31 mammals, 117 fishes and 65 amphibians and reptiles. The marshes and open water of the refuge provide wintering areas for 23 species of migratory waterfowl, as well as a year-round home for great blue herons, great egrets, wood storks, cormorants, brown pelicans and other species of marsh and shore birds