Although Brian keeps track of the time that has passed since the crash by making a mark each day on a stone near his shelter door, in reality he measures time in the wilderness by events, keeping a sort of mental journal. One of the pivotal happenings during his lonely sojourn is the “Day of First Meat.”

Fish are plentiful in the lake, and Brian is able to catch as much as he needs, but he craves “heavier...deeper food”; he craves meat. He knows that squirrels are plentiful in the area, and he thinks he might be able to catch a rabbit with his spear or an arrow, but the creatures that intrigue him the most are the silly fowl he has named “foolbirds.” These birds are seemingly everywhere, but their color and feathers provide such effective camouflage that Brian finds it impossible to see them until they explode into flight at his feet. Despite this difficulty, he resolves to focus his first hunting attempt on the foolbirds and to stick with it until he catches one.

Brian has gone halfway around the lake and scared up at least twenty birds, but he is still unable to see them until they fly up and away. Taking a break for a moment, he sits at the base of a tree and tries to figure out what he is doing wrong. Perplexed, he gets up and starts to walk again, but he has not taken even two steps before a bird flies up at his feet. It was right next to him while he was thinking about the problem of how to see them!

Brian is chagrined, but this time something about the foolbird catches his eye. As he watches it fly, he notices that it has a distinctive shape, kind of like “a flying pear.” Brian experiences an epiphany as he realizes that instead of looking for the bird’s color, he needs to be searching for its outline; Brian must retrain his eyes to look for shape.

Now that he is conscious of what to look for, Brian begins to perceive things as he has never seen them before. Within moments, he sees three birds before they explode into flight, and he is emboldened to try to bring one down with his arrows. This method is unsuccessful, however, because his arrows, having no feathers, do little more than tumble from the bow. Brian decides to use his spear instead. After many tries, catches his “first meat.”

Taking his prize back to the shelter, Brian discovers that he does not know how to prepare and cook it. At home it had been easy because chickens bought from the store came “cleaned and neat, no feathers or insides.” Looking at the limp, feathered body in his hands, Brian at first does not know where to start, but hunger drives him to figure it out.

After much experimentation, Brian learns that the easiest way to remove the feathers from the bird is to just pull the skin off. When he has done this, the bird’s insides fall out the back end, emitting an odor that is at first sickening but is also filled with an earthy richness. Brian then cuts off the neck and feet of the bird with his hatchet, pushes a pointed stick through the body, props it up on a forked branch over the fire, and rotates it slowly. It takes a long time for the meat to cook all the way through, and Brian, ravenous, must force himself to be patient. When the bird is finally done, Brian tears a piece from the breast, puts it in his mouth, and chews carefully. Never in his entire lifetime has he tasted “anything as fine as that first bite.”