A Florida scrub jay crouches on a branch amid the brush at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. NASA's Kennedy Space Center is located on the refuge, which provides a habitat for 330 species of birds. Listed as a threatened state species since 1975 and as a threatened federal species since 1987, the Florida scrub jay thrives in an extremely dry habitat called a scrub. Their ideal environment is a relatively open flatwoods of oak or sand pine scrub with trees less than 10 feet tall, wide apart and providing minimal canopy cover. The spaceport is home to one of the three remaining large populations of these intelligent, curious birds.
<bdi><a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117485950" class="extiw" title="d:Q117485950"><span title="American photographer">Ben Smegelsky</span></a>
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