While exploring a stream with his dog and a pet crow the author at age 11, came upon a 90-year-old man who lived in the woods in a small cottage. The home was surrounded by huge aviaries that were filled with hundreds of birds he was studying or nursing back to health. Roy Ivor was a famous ornithologist who quite literally lived with birds. The author and "The Birdman of Erindale" formed a bond that influenced the way the author understands the natural world and his place in it.

The Woodlands of Ivor is a collection of essays that detail the possibilities that exist when intimacy is achieved with wild animals and the natural world.