You've always got to listen to the birds. In a tiny town on the North Norfolk coast, Fran's life is unravelling. As she fills her days cleaning the caravan park she owns, she is preoccupied by worry - about the behaviour of her son, the absences of her husband and her strained relationship with her sister's family. Her one source of relief: early in the mornings, before the responsibilities and uncertainties take over, she slips out to the beach to watch the birds. Small-town tension simmers all around her when a new teacher starts at the local school and a Romany community settle in the field adjoining her caravan park. Not to mention the beheaded birds that have started appearing across the town. Then the schoolteacher and Fran's brother-in-law both go missing on the same night. But all Fran can seem to care about is the birds. Meanwhile, Tad, a seventy-year-old Romany man, watches the townspeople from the distance of his caravan - and sees everything clearly.