Distinctive with its black and white coloring and very long red legs, this stilt strides through the shallows of a marsh near KSC. Stilts inhabit salt marshes and shallow coastal bays in the East. KSC shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. 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.