#rick.

"What's that? Who's that baby?" -- Morty

Morty seeing the baby version of himself being held by younger Rick. This implies Bird Person's Rick met (a version of) Morty as a baby, which may not be the Morty we know nor the one that Bird Person is speaking to.

This is further evidence that Rick returned to a family that was abandoned by Rick for twenty years, and that he potentially lost his original family. That was suggested by Memory Rick, who may have been younger -- but as a Memory, his knowledge would probably include a little more loose information, not an exact day or time.

Because for BP's Rick to have held Morty, he'd have to have at least had Beth and Beth would have had to have had Summer. So that sort of suggests that if Beth died, it would have been post-Morty.

"Morty, suppose you could retrieve your family from Earth but had to abandon Rick. I could give your loved ones shelter on Birdworld, even jobs, possibly as worm ranchers. How often do you think you might look up at the stars and wonder what might have been had you just put your faith in Rick?" -- Bird Person

Is this Bird Person speaking from experience? It wouldn't surprise me if he thought back on his choice to stay in his universe and fight rather than going to a world where the war with the Galactic Federation never even happened.

Unrelated to BP and Morty, there's also this conversation that I think relates to Rick and his family in general. Not directly, but as a thematic mirror to what Rick's been going through in the series.

"We've been waiting 16 years for our daughter to respect us, but the key is, it has to be our daughter, not this person she's become." -- Beth

I feel like this is a reflection of one of the show's core concepts; the fact that Rick can go between universes and everything and nothing matters, being attached to your actions and your true timeline contrasts with the infinite possibilities.

(I firmly believe that Rick has gotten to the point where his actions are his own and that he has to own his mistakes because that's what makes him who he is. If he started jumping between worlds on a whim because things got messy, he'd stop being himself and be some wish fulfilment detached from any true reality... And that's a weirdly dehumanizing thought, as we are our consequences as much as we are our actions.)

I do think this all builds up the case that the Rick we know isn't the 'original' Rick, of when we met him,. He's likely a Rick who lost his family sometime after Beth had Morty, then skirted around the universe self-soothing and coping. Then something triggered his return to his family, just in a different universe.

I think his universe goggles are part of that -- small side note, Rick asks Morty to wear a backpack when he's using the goggles, but doesn't make the others wear the backpack when they're browsing in S1E8 -- so I think the backpack helps the search by INCLUDING that person into his search, like adding additional terms in a Google search. Rick could have left that Morty in the Cronenberg universe but made sure to take him. So he could have saved himself and left Morty in that Cronenberg universe, but didn't.

(Also weird because he just... abandons Beth, Jerry and Summer without even trying to bring them along, so clue what the fuck to do with that.)

This harkens back to S1E8 where Rick gives them goggles to be able to see alternate versions of themselves -- he had to have MADE those goggles, likely to see where he'd want to move to originally, then as the backup in Rick Potion #9/the C-137 universe jump.

Rick: [walking to the cupboard] Hey, do we have any wafer cookies? [grabs cookie box. eats cookies and starts walking away] Mm! [stops and looks back at Jerry, Summer and Beth] Oh, boy. Looks like you guys have been checking out alternate lives and realizing you don't have it as good, huh? That's too bad. You know, me and Morty are having a blast, We just discovered a show called "Ball Fondlers". I mean, I don't want to rub it in or anything, but you guys clearly backed the wrong conceptual horse. [eats another cookie, walking offscreen]