SPACEPHOTOS

(02/29/2000) -- In a wooded area of Kennedy Space Center, robins gather on a tree branch just beginning to show new Spring growth. A member of the thrush family, robins inhabit towns, gardens, open woodlands and agricultural lands. They range through most of North America, spending winters in large roosts mostly in the United States but also Newfoundland, southern Ontario and British Columbia. The Center shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a haven and habitat for more than 331 species of birds. The Refuge encompasses 92,000 acres that are also a habitat for 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