SPACEPHOTOS

(02/11/2000) -- Coots draw together (foreground) in the waters of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which shares a boundary with Kennedy Space Center. They are often seen in the Indian River and Banana Creek swimming together in large groups such as these. Other birds, mainly ducks, swim nearby. Coots are readily identified by their slate-gray bodies and conspicuous white bill. They inhabit open ponds and marshes from southern Canada to northern South America. Excellent swimmers and divers, they eat various aquatic plants, but also feed on seeds grass and waste grain on land. 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