The Birdwatcher

Social worker Saffron Wilson has custody of her and her ex-husband Wynn Wilson’s two children, mid-teen Lucy who is at a stage where she wants nothing to do with family and everything to do with friends, and adolescent Jonah who is at the stage of wanting to tag along with “the older kids”, which includes his mother, while still doing his kids stuff. Pinning everything on chemotherapy to rid her of her cancer, Saffron learns at the conclusion of the treatment that the cancer has metastasized. Once over the grief for herself, Saffron worries about what will happen to the kids, there nobody obvious, including not Wynn, who can be suitable or willing guardians after she is gone. Grasping at straws, Saffron thinks about her birth mother whose name, Jane Levesque, is all she knows about her. Upon discovering that Jane had in her files with the adoption agency a no contact clause, Saffron, furthering discovering that she is now married Jane Eastman – more commonly referred to as Birdy being an ornithologist – and is currently camping with her husband Finch Eastman to do some birding and for solitude to complete her latest book, decides to go camping with Lucy and Jonah within spitting distance to find out clandestinely all she can about her birth mother, this task despite none of them ever having gone camping. Once set up next to the Eastmans, Saffron has to decide what to do in light of what is best for the kids which includes the fact that she can see that Birdy doesn’t have a motherly bone in her body. The specific action that Saffron takes is influenced by the unexpected arrival of Matt, Birdy’s editor whose surprise visit is multi-purpose.