In 1949, Jake Hamrick, a 19-year-old who has been obsessed since childhood with the ivory-billed woodpecker, leaves Illinois for Louisiana accompanied by Robin, his tiny girlfriend. They search in the bayous where the bird was last reported, and Robin, as obsessed as Jake, dresses like the bird, smearing her naked body with white clay, wearing a cloak of black crow feathers, her hair in a red crest. Local hunters pursue Robin and Jake deep into the bayous, where they are harbored by Robert, an ancient black man.