Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

One of my free days a friend and I spent at the Wildlife Refuge that is on property of the Kennedy Space Center.  Part of it, we walked and part, we drove through.  Here is a brief picture journal of our adventures.

My friend Tina King taking pictures at the beginning of our day.  Tina was an Einstein Fellow last year.

Large group of pelicans and ibis were in a pond right off of our trail.

The Scrub Jay is unique to Florida and the park ranger told us that we would probably hear them, but they were shy and hard to see.  Well, this guy was not shy at all and let us take several pictures of him.

I was told that the Wood Stork was becoming an endangered species.  We saw several groups of them.

Everyone that comes to Florida wants to see an alligator.  We found this big guy sunning just off the road.

I even got to see the manatee.  There were about four of them eating and swimming at the Manatee Lookout.  It is really hard to get a picture of them, but they are very big.  The brown spot in the picture is mostly its tail.  they stand on their heads as they feed on the bottom.  I learned that they are closely related to the elephant.