SPACEPHOTOS

(03/01/1999) -- A pair of willets soars to a landing among a flock of short-billed dowitchers on a grassy mound 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. They breed in southern Canada, the United States and the West Indies, wintering from the southern U.S. to central South America. The dowitchers' range is southern Alaska to eastern Canada, and they also winter from the southern United States to central South America. They often frequent coastal flats during migrations. The 92,000-acre refuge is a habitat for more than 310 species of birds, 25 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