{CaptionsBy}    Information Dynamics, Inc.

{LastEditor}    Anita Barrett

{ScannedBy}     NASA/KSC Public Affairs Office

{author}        NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration

{date}          26-Feb-1999

{description}   A female red-breasted merganser paddles in the rippled water of
                the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which shares a
                boundary with the Kennedy Space Center. Male mergansers have a
                green head, gray sides, white neck ring and rusty breast. One of
                three mergansers commonly found on salt water, it ranges from
                northern lakes and tundra ponds, wintering principally on the
                ocean and in salt bays. 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
                also 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.

{highres}       2617 x 1822

{highsize}      2891769

{hightype}      JPEG

{lowres}        320 x 223

{lowsize}       101619

{lowtype}       GIF

{mediumres}     1024 x 713

{mediumsize}    232989

{mediumtype}    JPEG

{number}        KSC-99PP-0247

{slideres}      172 x 152

{slidesize}     37706

{slidetype}     GIF

{tinyres}       100 x 70

{tinysize}      10674

{tinytype}      GIF

{title}         A red-breasted merganser swims in the lagoon

{type}          Image

{end}