In the ear­ly hours of a cold Sat­ur­day morn­ing at 6:45 A.M., the nar­ra­tor finds them­selves next to a frosty field, ready to inter­view hunters dressed in cam­ou­flage, armed with loaded weapons. The tem­per­a­ture is a brisk 34 degrees, and they reflect on the choic­es that led them to this sit­u­a­tion. Their crow col­umn hinges on this first crow hunt, ini­ti­at­ed by their inquiry to Dr. Cor­nell, a bird expert. The dis­cus­sion cen­ters around anoth­er town’s unsuc­cess­ful attempts to con­trol a trou­bling crow pop­u­la­tion – a stag­ger­ing esti­mat­ed fifty thou­sand. Dr. Cor­nell notes that despite the com­mu­ni­ty’s desire for action, spo­radic hunts will fail to make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the crows’ num­bers or migra­tion pat­terns.

The nar­ra­tor dis­cov­ers an alter­na­tive approach from anoth­er town, which embraced its crow prob­lem by estab­lish­ing a fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ing the birds, trans­form­ing the sit­u­a­tion into a tourist attrac­tion rather than a hunt. This inno­v­a­tive strat­e­gy piques the nar­ra­tor’s inter­est, ques­tion­ing the effec­tive­ness of the cur­rent crow hunt.

Liam, present with the nar­ra­tor, reveals that his father expressed a desire for them to bond over hunt­ing, a tra­di­tion he him­self isn’t keen on. He under­stands his father’s intent but admits he finds lit­tle joy in the idea of hunt­ing crows, stat­ing his fond­ness for them instead. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals a gen­er­a­tional gap and dif­fer­ing per­spec­tives on tra­di­tion­al prac­tices.

As they dis­cuss poten­tial inter­vie­wees at the hunt, the nar­ra­tor’s mind drifts to Joe and Juniper, anx­ious about Joe’s involve­ment in the hunt. When Liam notices the change in her demeanor, he offers a com­fort­ing ges­ture but she deflects, insist­ing she is fine and does not like guns. Liam’s con­cern grows, lead­ing him to advise cau­tion as they part ways.

Despite the hunters being gen­er­al­ly unin­ter­est­ed in the impact of their actions on the crow pop­u­la­tion, they eager­ly engage with the nar­ra­tor. How­ev­er, upon hear­ing gun­shots, the nar­ra­tor becomes increas­ing­ly unset­tled, wish­ing for a more pos­i­tive town cel­e­bra­tion instead of the grim real­i­ty of the hunt, pon­der­ing how they could trans­form the entire town into one of Juniper’s notes for the crows, long­ing for a bet­ter exchange for their efforts.