KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- This immature red-shouldered hawk on the roadside at Kennedy Space Center appears to be eyeing the photographer. The red-shouldered hawk's range extends from Minnesota and New Brunswick south to the Gulf Coast and on the Pacific Coast from northern California to Baja California. This hawk is often found in lowlands, especially swampy woods and bogs. It feeds on small snakes, frogs, insects and small mammals. Kennedy shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which 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. KSC00pp0245