Disaster looms in the countryside. A dismally wet spring threatens to wipe out the summer harvests, and ruin the eggs of nesting birds. Against this emerging backdrop is set an exciting, evocative and often very amusing story that takes the reader directly into the lives of the birds and animals for whom the weather can be both friend - and implacable foe. The wise old toad, Tarquin, warns the animal community that without a successful harvest, starvation will follow in the winter. Meanwhile Wrecker the Weasel, leader of a group of professional egg thieves, is struggling to find - and steal - enough eggs to meet the demands of dangerous and powerful figures in the ferret underworld. Salvation for all could lie in the grain stores and hen house of nearby Half Mile Farm, but with the farm in the brutal grip of rodent gangster 'Monsta' the Rat, what steps can the beleaguered creatures take to secure their livelihoods - and their very survival?