When artistic Addie Sturmer enrols in Professor Tom Kavanagh's "Biology of the Birds" class at rural Burnham College, Tom recognises in Addie a mirrored image of his own passion. Their life together promises to be ideal - Addie paints birds and Tom researches birdsong when he's not teaching. But over the years, Addie becomes not only a famous bird artist but an even more infamous environmental activist, and their shared lives change as Tom struggles to make Addie happy while being consumed by his own work. Their grown daughter, Scarlet, who has spent her childhood longing for a "normal" family, alternately rebels against her counterculture parents and embraces her conflicting feelings about her mother. But now Scarlet has the kind of homecoming which no child wishes, a visit back to family and friends for the passing of Addie.