Fiction in progress: Early birds

What if everything around you isn't what it seems? What if 65 million years ago not only the dinosaurs disappeared. Something went missing along with them. The only remnants of a civilization being the omnipresent birds you see all around you. Clues aplenty: The incredible information density of bird song. The uncanny ability of some birds to perform complex behaviour, even making tools. Overly complex mating rituals that look not unlike human dance. Recent research even points to birds that do agriculture and retinal head-up-displays with navigation overlays. Really, google it.

Could it be that birds are degenerated or even transcended versions of a highly intelligent civilization that preceded ours by just a few million years? We've only been around for 20,000 years, which equals the blink of an eye in cosmic terms. And if they were around, where did they go, and most importantly: Why did they go and leave no trace?

Well, what if they happened to clean up after them really well or what if we just didn't look in the right places? As more and more scientific evidence piles up, an image is forming with some considerable holes in its center.

I just might be writing about that center.