SPACEPHOTOS

(09/29/2000) --- This pair of bald eagles appear unhappy as the focus of the camera while they perch together on the top of a utility pole at Kennedy Space Center. The Center counts more than half a dozen bald eagles among the denizens of its site, especially since KSC shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The Southern bald eagle is no stranger to Florida as it ranges throughout the state and along the coasts of California, Texas, Louisiana and south Atlantic states. Most southern Florida eagles nesting at KSC arrive during late summer and leave for the north in late spring. They move to nest sites in October and November and lay one to three eggs. The young fledge from February to April. The Refuge encompasses 92,000 acres that are a habitat for more than 331 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, as well as a variety of insects