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Making a Picture-Perfect Landing

An adult osprey, carrying a fish in its talons, prepares to land in its nest atop a speaker platform in the Press Site parking lot at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
An adult osprey, carrying a fish in its talons, prepares to land in its nest atop a speaker platform in the parking lot at Kennedy Space Center.

In this image from 2014, an adult osprey, carrying a fish in its talons, prepares to land in its nest atop a speaker platform in the press site parking lot at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In the background is the 209-foot-tall U.S. flag painted on the side of the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building, which serves as the central hub of NASA’s premier multi-user spaceport, capable of hosting several different kinds of rockets and spacecraft at the same time. The parking lot borders the water of the Launch Complex 39 turn basin, making it an ideal source of food for the osprey. The undeveloped property on Kennedy Space Center is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge provides a habitat for a plethora of wildlife, including 330 species of birds. For information on the refuge, visit http://www.fws.gov/merrittisland/Index.html.

Image Credit: NASA/Daniel Casper