The first bird we saw take off over the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge left with a flash. We stood on the bank of the Indian River at Marina Park with another hundred or so people at 2:28 this morning. We could see many more people standing along a causeway south of us. Traffic had remained steady on U.S. Highway No. 1 until a few minutes before. Now everyone was quiet and still. Then came a flash and the light flickered momentarily before a ball of fire slowly rose into view, accelerated quickly, and vanished after about ten seconds into a low cloud bank. I had lifted my binoculars, but the brightness of the explosion made them useless. Anne snapped a few pictures. The engine blast was overexposed. For a few seconds it seemed dawn seemed to be breaking, but then darkness returned. The floodlights that before had illuminated the clouds now lit up the exhaust trail. It took almost a minute for the sound of the rockets to reach us. It started as a gentle roar and became an almost deafening vibration. Then the sound faded away and we were left only with the night. Cars started and the audience began to leave. It took us five minutes in a queue to turn right onto U.S. 1 and begin our ten-mile return to the campground. We had gone to bed early so as to enjoy four hours of sleep before a midnight departure to Titusville. Our early departure assured a parking space and a great viewpoint. After the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, we slept two hours and rose again in search of more familiar fliers at the refuge. Our early arrival was frustrated by finding the gate locked. The refuge is closed for three days before a shuttle launch. It normally opens at 7:00 a.m. This morning it was locked tight until an hour later. We made good use of the hour by walking along the causeway. There we found some birds and a few hundred “campers” who had stayed put after the launch. We monitored the gate with our binoculars and observed the refuge crew arrive, remove the barriers, and open the gate. Then we entered. The refuge supports a colony of the endangered scrub jay and ducks and shorebirds. Sadly a proposed expansion of the NASA operation threatens both the wildlife and visitation. We can understand that the refuge comprises federal land that was not needed by the military and now is, but as wild lands become more and more scarce, the loss of any national park, national forest, or national wildlife refuge land becomes tragic. We hope an alternative can be selected that minimizes the loss of wildlife and public access. We found our scrub jays but could not find our main target bird, the black rail. We are looking early in the year, but what makes the search most difficult is that so little of its habitat is easily accessible. It nests in both the Merritt Island and the St. John’s Refuge. The former is closed at night and the later is always closed to the public. The bird is tiny and sings loudly only at night. We have made pre-dawn visits to promising locations accessible to us without hearing “kick key poo, kick key poo, kick key poo.” We will keep listening and looking.