Sprinters and Sylvans, and Whispers on the wind...

295 million years post-establishment, the climate changes that have hit Serina after the hothouse now bring cold, aridity, and another mass extinction to the world of birds. Forests decline again, dwindling to fragments of their former selves, mirroring the ice age of the Mid-Ultimocene. Most animals which live within them find themselves trapped in smaller and smaller ranges, unable to venture into the unknown open beyond. But not all forests have been lost yet, and not all who still dwell within them are so helpless.

Enter the scroungers. Serinaustra's only wholly endemic rhyncheirid bird lineage, they have lived at the bottom of the world for tens of millions of years and in that time took advantage of all manner of niches in the once more diverse ecosystem. But their origin came from survivors of the prior ice age, an incredibly tenacious creature that endured the worst the world could throw at it and clung to survival on a world covered end to end in solid ice. That some scroungers would carry on after the hothouse, returning to their ancestral tenacious ways, was assured. And now it is those which remained "primitive" and behaviorally flexible like their snowscrounger ancestor which come through the new era best. Squaboons and their relatives within the primal scrounger lineage will, before too much longer, be the only scroungers left; they will be the last.

But the finale of these creatures upon Serina will feature unforeseen developments as the final stretch pushes the evolution of the smartest scroungers yet. In Serina's southern regions, two distant relatives of very different habits, but overlapping habitats, are ascending to the top of the ladder of sapience together, sometimes as partners, and at other times fierce rivals. Which, if any, will win this final contest, now remains to be seen. The relationships that will form between them and extend out to other late-surviving species, related and not, will be complicated and unique, many without parallels in any other races that came so far before them. And the scroungers are only part of a story newly unfolding.

~~~

The sylvanspark is a descendant of the bloodbreasted squaboon that has moved south in response to the drying out of its former habitat near the great blue salt lake into an inhospitable salt pan. Its ancestors made the dangerous trek into the longdark swamp, seeking wetter and greener pastures. They have now adapted to what remains of it, the austral swamp, a seasonal but nonetheless a productive biome in the final stretch, 295 million years PE. Here the summers are short but rich, and nutritious plants and abundant aquatic prey can be found to nourish a range of large and complex animal life. For a generalist omnivore, this means food is plentiful.

Even though this habitat has changed very much from it hothouse incarnation, resources are still abundant enough to let the sylvansparks develop large clans of a hundred or more, each a single large family led by a matriarch, with a social hierarchy that passes down the place of each mother to her offspring, whether they are male or female. Males now live within the clan along with females, and clans differ from their earlier ancestor in having equal sex ratios; all-male bachelor clans are not typical. The sexes differ slightly in size in typical squaboon fashion, and males are longer-feathered and have brighter blue and red faces and an inflatable red throat sac. The males compete non-physically for a mate each spring in a raucous display, but pair bonds last only one breeding season, so that the next season, every one gets a fresh new chance to compete, even if they did not find success the last year. A very gregarious animal, sylvansparks engage in a very high degree of close social interaction year round, and strongly dislike being alone. Most activities are done in groups, including raising of young, and even grown adults rarely sleep without being in physical contact with others. Even though young are often attended by many adults in their groups, however, they usually sleep close by their mother, and have the strongest attachment to her. This species is not generally monogamous, and the paternity is rarely known for sure, so that there is not typically a single male which is known as "dad". A strong bond exists between mother and child, though, which is often maintained throughout life.

Sylvanspark clans don't exist in isolation, either; like in human society, families are naturally assembled into wider, settled communities of thousands of individuals of varying relations, which may or may not have even higher-ranking leaders that help keep them cohesive. They survive bitter winter cold through simple means - huddling and nest-making and the collective storing of food gathered by the whole clan or even the entire community - as well as advanced ones, such as the control and creation of fire, something only accomplished with success over the long-term by one other species before them. They demonstrate an incredible adaptability of behavior, crafting complex tools and building upon the skills of their predecessors through cultural learning. Their arsenal of skills is unmatched and has just recently begun to include advances in technology that no animal discovered before them - but just what of it they discovered on their own, and what was acquired from others who found it first, becomes almost impossible to know as they are now just one of multiple new, bright minds emerging upon the southern continent together. Not just one, but a whole shower of "sparks" are now falling in the evening twilight of the story of Serina, and the sylvanspark is not alone.

~~~

The sylvanspark shares this strange new world with the slaughtersprinter, the fearsome, carnivorous descendant of the squabgoblin that prefers the open moors, plains and scrublands of Serinaustra north of the austral swamp. The replacement of jungle with grasslands forced these hunters into the open to survive, and in the last few million years they have grown larger and leaner, now evolved to run down fast prey animals over very long distances as an endurance hunter, and then kill them, once exhausted, with weapons. This frighteningly intelligent predator visits the colder polar realm rarely except in the summer; its short plumage is more adapted to let it stay cool in the heat closer to the equator, so to survive in colder areas, it must manufacture clothing for warmth, cutting and stitching the hides of its prey into warm winter coats. It is more restricted in diet than the sylvanspark, an obligate carnivore that can only digest meat, which means that it more quickly depletes a given area of food resources, which has forced it to be far more mobile than its sedentary counterpart. 

Slaughtersprinters have also developed into a society based on the cooperation of many clans, with the difference being that they are rarely sedentary and roam the landscape as nomads. A social species like the sylvanspark, individual clans are smaller due to less food availability as they cannot eat plants, and so may number ten to forty. But throughout the year, many of these clans will meet at long-visited rendezvous sites and mingle, sometimes exchanging young members so that they can find a mate - this is the primary way clans form alliances and so remain at peace with one another. Though far from a solitary species, slaughtersprinters have somewhat different social behavior customs than the sylvanspark; they do not mind being alone for periods even of several days, and can be competent independent hunters. Social grooming is less freely given out, and is more restricted to a single mate and to their own offspring. Slaughtersprinters rarely sleep in physical contact with others, typically creating their own small, private nests before sleeping from gathered grasses, each one positioned a few feet apart from their neighbors. Like sylvans, however, their childcare is communal and there is even less strength in the bond between a child and its parents - it is usually raised by an entire group, in a creche among its peers, and it is often an unrelated, or distantly related, member of the clan which a young sprinter forms the strongest parental bond with, with the adult performing a mentor-like role to the juvenile. 

In summer, migrating slaughtersprinters may move south following their prey and there more frequently meet sylvanspark clans. Its ancestors being natural predator of squaboons, this ancient dynamic of predator and prey sometimes still rings true, with the goblin hunting the squaboon, but as they have both evolved physically and culturally, there is no longer a clear-cut hierarchy between them. The sylvanspark has grown into a well-matched opponent as it has gathered in larger groups and developed tools, making preying upon it difficult and rarely worth the risk. These innovations have also brought commonality between them, and paved the way for more peaceful interactions of trade. 

With better fine motor skills - and a still-mysterious new ability to forge strange materials from the earth, sylvansparks generally make much more durable and refined tools that are very desirable to the slaughtersprinter; in contrast, it is a faster and much more effective hunter of big game, a rare food resource that is in high demand further south, especially as winter approaches in the swamp. The slaughterpsrinter also understands fire, and uses it to its advantage both to hunt and to cook its food to improve its digestibility, and in its drier grassland habitat, it may well have been the first to capture this skill, but it is the sylvanspark that has truly taken its use to new levels. The sylvanspark has learned to smelt copper, and so has brought the world into a new age of tool-making. The formation of a trade network between the two societies and the exchange of goods in demand that each can procure has helped to encourage less violent interactions between the rivals in recent times, though it is often still very tenuous. Language barriers are still great between them, with these species having very different vocalizations, but the gaps in this game are sometimes bridged by a third player: clever bogglebirds, no less smart than their business partners, which evolved alongside the squabgoblins as a sentry and scout, but have since learned they can mingle freely between the two scrounger societies and glean twice the benefits. They serve as a regular line of indirect cultural exchange, picking up habits, tricks, and necessary bits of language from both, and occasionally serving as a translator during trades - in exchange for a small price, of course. The third players in this Serinaustran game of politics, the aloof whisperwings keep their distance from the petty squabbles of the scroungers, involving themselves only when the situation is set to benefit them in some way.

  A sophont descendant of the bright-eyed bogglebird with a reputation for being distant, sly, and a little untrustworthy, the whisperwing is nevertheless a pivotal player in the budding multispecies society that also includes the ingenious sylvanspark and the fierce slaughtersprinter. These birds most importantly perform translator roles, facilitating trade between the scrounger species, but they will often alter the communication just a little to favor benefits to themselves, if they can. Whisperwings have developed quite independent cultures to either of their part-time partners, which often put heavy emphasis on art. These birds are instinctively drawn to blue and violet, and to exaggerate their own sex appeal (since this is the color of their natural plumage) they decorate themselves, sometimes very heavily, with clothing and jewelry in these colors. Whisperwings are very dexterous both in beak and with their feet, and can weave fabric, tie knots, shape tools, and do most things that humans could do, albeit in modified and sometimes slower ways. Like Thalassic gravediggers did, individuals often cooperate to speed up crafts that are hard to do singly. Their primary fabric is silk, spun from small, bug-like domesticated creatures that also, long ago, resembled birds like themselves, and dyed with plant- and insect--based pigments. Blue is rare in nature, and the sources utilized are often seasonal, meaning that they must be carefully collected and stored - in some instances, they are cultivated, in an effort to reduce the scarcity. So valued are these colorants that the ingredients for clothing dyes are one of the most sought-after payments for transactions with both sylvans and sprinters. These birds modify their own bodies to better decorate them, with nose rings being especially common and homologous to human ear piercings, as it provides a stable place to secure dangling pendants.

Whisperwings are social animals too, but also the most independent of the three species in their dynamic. They are generally are averse to any close physical touch at all outside sexual contexts, having a strong sense of personal space that they do not like intruded upon even by a mate - in this way they are similar to modern canaries, which also strongly dislike being touched by one another, but which still flock together and enjoy social interaction with fellows at an arm's length. Whisperwings do not live in communal homes, but rather small, independent dwellings, albeit usually closely spaced to those of their neighbors; these homes are usually made of woodland materials and built in trees, and usually resemble a large, tidy mound of sticks with a spacious indoor chamber. As a rule, only immature young are permitted into another's nest, and any adult is not allowed to do so except in very specific permitted circumstances. The ancestors of whisperwings were relatively solitary, so ancestral territorial behaviors, especially between males, have become highly reduced toward defending this one small private setting, a necessary reduction in aggression to facilitate the formation of a more complex society. It is considered unusual for male whisperwings to provide direct parental care for their own offspring, and paternity is not always known, as both sexes are polygamous during their spring nesting season. This is not to say that mothers have no support in child-care, however - it is customary for relatives to help each other out and to babysit when needed, and both males and females will readily do so for their sisters, mothers, and grown daughters. 

As a generalist, whisperwings can eat a wide diet, though it tends to be split roughly equally three ways into grains, insects, and the meat of vertebrate animals, with some seasonal inclusion of fruit. Like most bogglebirds they are highly terrestrial and have long legs, allowing them to hunt most of their meals on the ground. Whisperwings have more advanced agriculture than contemporary scroungers, and cultivate several types of plants, insects, and occasionally small vertebrates as livestock, and they preserve food by drying and smoking, which greatly increases the ease of finding food during polar winters. This gives them more leisure time, which they fill with artistic pursuits. Though ornamenting themselves is a major pastime for almost all whisperwings, other arts are also explored including drawing and woodworking. Metal is received through trade with the sylvans and used both in tools and shaped into jewelry, but the whisperwings typically cannot smelt it themselves, keeping them reliant on working with the other species to receive it. In turn, sylvans have a fondness for warm clothing but are not skilled artisans. There is thus always a system of trade between them, with each having skills that compliment those of the other, and require that they work together, even though it is most often a purely business relationship.