question: How do birds know how to build a nest? Do their parents teach them or do they just watch fellow birds and copy them?
comment: Instincts, it’s beaded into their genetic code that they have to have a shelter and they build one out of whatever is available, some are different based on species like how some birds find hollows and others make nests.
passages: Nest architecture may be as useful for distinguishing species as the animals' physical appearance. Species identified through such means are called "ethospecies". This is especially common in wasps and termites, but also can apply to birds. In most animals, there is some variation in nest construction between individuals. Whether these differences are driven by genetics or learned behavior is unknown.
   Research on avian paternal behavior shows that nest-building is triggered by different stimuli in the two sexes. Unlike the case for females, male nest-building among ring doves depends on the behavior of the prospective mate rather than on hormonal mechanisms. Males that are castrated and injected daily with testosterone either court females or build nests, depending purely on the behavior of the female. Hence, the male avian transition from courtship to nest-building is prompted by social cues and not by changes in hormone levels.
  
  Section::::In insects.
   Most tanagers build cup nests on branches in trees. Some nests are almost globular. Entrances are usually built on the side of the nest. The nests can be shallow or deep. The species of the tree in which they choose to build their nests and the nests' positions vary among genera. Most species nest in an area hidden by very dense vegetation. No information is yet known regarding the nests of some species.
   Section::::Types.:Mound.
   Not every bird species builds or uses a nest. Some auks, for instance—including common murre, thick-billed murre and razorbill—lay their eggs directly onto the narrow rocky ledges they use as breeding sites. The eggs of these species are dramatically pointed at one end, so that they roll in a circle when disturbed. This is critical for the survival of the developing eggs, as there are no nests to keep them from rolling off the side of the cliff. Presumably because of the vulnerability of their unprotected eggs, parent birds of these auk species rarely leave them unattended. Nest location and architecture is strongly influenced by local topography and other abiotic factors.
   A Field Guide to Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds
  
  A Field Guide to Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds is a guide to the identification of the nests and eggs of Australian birds, authored by Gordon Beruldsen.
  
  Section::::First edition.
   In most mound-building species, males do most or all of the nest construction and maintenance. Using his strong legs and feet, the male scrapes together material from the area around his chosen nest site, gradually building a conical or bell-shaped pile. This process can take five to seven hours a day for more than a month. While mounds are typically reused for multiple breeding seasons, new material must be added each year in order to generate the appropriate amount of heat. A female will begin to lay eggs in the nest only when the mound's temperature has reached an optimal level.
   About the construction of nest by the long-tailed tit, it has been written:
  
  Section::::Building materials.:Collected materials.:Material of animal origin.
   The "cavity" nest is a chamber, typically in living or dead wood, but sometimes in the trunks of tree ferns or large cacti, including saguaro. In tropical areas, cavities are sometimes excavated in arboreal insect nests. A relatively small number of species, including woodpeckers, trogons, some nuthatches and many barbets, can excavate their own cavities. Far more species—including parrots, tits, bluebirds, most hornbills, some kingfishers, some owls, some ducks and some flycatchers—use natural cavities, or those abandoned by species able to excavate them; they also sometimes usurp cavity nests from their excavating owners. Those species that excavate their own cavities are known as "primary cavity nesters", while those that use natural cavities or those excavated by other species are called "secondary cavity nesters". Both primary and secondary cavity nesters can be enticed to use nest boxes (also known as bird houses); these mimic natural cavities, and can be critical to the survival of species in areas where natural cavities are lacking.
   The nesting habits of these birds are similarly variable, including pendulous woven nests in the oropendolas and orioles. Many icterids are colonial, nesting in colonies of up to 100,000 birds. Some cowbird species engage in brood parasitism: females lay their eggs in the nests of other species, in a similar fashion to some cuckoos.
   Orangutans build nests specialized for both day or night use. These are carefully constructed; young orangutans learn from observing their mother's nest-building behaviour. In fact, nest-building is a leading cause in young orangutans leaving their mother for the first time. From six months of age onwards, orangutans practice nest-building and gain proficiency by the time they are three years old.
   Crested pigeons have been observed to build nests on a platform of branches, with both sexes collecting nest building material. The female builds the nest, lacing thin twigs through the substructure. They are thought to learn to build nests through trial and error.
  
  Section::::Feeding, behaviour and ecology..:Parasites.
   Trogons excavate their nests by chewing cavities into very soft dead wood; some species make completely enclosed chambers (accessed by upward-slanting entrance tunnels), while others—like the extravagantly plumed resplendent quetzal—construct more open niches. In most trogon species, both sexes help with nest construction. The process may take several months, and a single pair may start several excavations before finding a tree or stump with wood of the right consistency.
   Section::::Behaviour.
  
  "Passer" sparrows build an untidy nest, which, depending on species and nest site availability, may be in a bush or tree, a natural hole in a tree, in a building or in thatch, or in the fabric of the nest of species such as the white stork. The clutch of up to eight eggs is incubated by both parents typically for 12–14 days, with another 14–24 more days to fledging.
   Tanimbar corellas learn by watching and copying. Just by opening the cage door, a Tanimbar corella's attention can be drawn to the latch on its cage and it can learn by trial and error how to open the latch with its beak and escape the cage in seconds. Tanimbar corellas can destroy furniture with their beaks and can chew through wires and cause potentially dangerous electrical incidents.
   The origins of the Nest began in the era of the sixties, when the veterinarian Jesús López Estudillo decided to buy land with eight acres containing 10,000 trees and plants devoted to research, conservation and breeding of endangered birds. His passion for these animals led him to bring together endangered birds and perform several experiments to recreate their habitat so they could be kept in captivity. Thus, he could observe their behavior and thereby create projects that would allow the reproduction and repopulate the species most threatened by human activity and climate change.
   Because open cup nests can essentially be built anywhere, there is little competition when it comes to nest building sites. Accordingly, both the song sparrow and the European blackbird do not show an increase in luteinizing hormone or testosterone during territory acquisition .
   Section::::Behaviour.:Breeding.:Nesting.
   Birds communicate with their flockmates through song, calls, and body language. Studies have shown that the intricate territorial songs of some birds must be learned at an early age, and that the memory of the song will serve the bird for the rest of its life. Some bird species are able to communicate in several regional varieties of their songs. For example, the New Zealand saddleback will learn the different song "dialects" of clans of its own species, much as human beings might acquire diverse regional dialects. When a territory-owning male of the species dies, a young male will immediately take his place, singing to prospective mates in the dialect appropriate to the territory he is in. Similarly, around 300 tui songs have been recorded. The greater the competition in the area, it has been suggested, the more likely the birds are to actually create or make their song more complex.
   Birds learn their songs from those made by other birds. In several examples, birds show highly developed repetition abilities: the Sri Lankan Greater racket-tailed drongo ("Dicrurus paradiseus") copies the calls of predators and the alarm signals of other birds Albert's lyrebird ("Menura alberti") can accurately imitate the satin bowerbird ("Ptilonorhynchus violaceus"),
   Hacking sites are usually large tracts of land. These areas have to be similar to the natural surroundings of a wild nest. The young raptors are put in a “hack box,” boxes that contain a nest inside that protect them from predators and are usually placed on a high site, e.g. cliffs, atop poles. Eggs are either captive bred or taken from wild nests and the chicks are placed in the boxes a couple of weeks before they reach their fledge age of six weeks. Until then, the birds are closely looked after and provided food without too much human contact.
   Birds-of-paradise build their nests from soft materials, such as leaves, ferns, and vine tendrils, typically placed in a tree fork. The typical number of eggs in each clutch varies among the species and is not known for every species. For larger species, it is almost always just one egg, but smaller species may produce clutches of 2–3 eggs. Eggs hatch after 16–22 days, and the young leave the nest at between 16 and 30 days of age.
  
  Section::::Relationship with humans.
   Many birds (and other animals) build nests. It can be argued that this behaviour constitutes tool use according to the definitions given above; the birds "carry objects (twigs, leaves) for future use", the shape of the formed nest prevents the eggs from rolling away and thereby "extends the physical influence realized by the animal", and the twigs are bent and twisted to shape the nest, i.e. "modified to fit a purpose". The complexity of bird nests varies markedly, perhaps indicating a range in the sophistication of tool use. For example, compare the highly complex structures of weaver birds to the simple mats of herbaceous matter with a central cup constructed by gulls, and it is noteworthy that some birds do not build nests, e.g. emperor penguins. The classification of nests as tools has been disputed on the basis that the completed nest, or burrow, is not held or manipulated.
   Evidence that birds can form abstract concepts such as "same v. different" has been provided by Alex, the grey parrot. Alex was trained by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg to vocally label more than 100 objects of different colors and shapes and which are made from different materials. Alex could also request or refuse these objects ('I want X') and quantify numbers of them.
  
  Macaws have been demonstrated to comprehend the concept of "left" and "right." 
  
  Section::::Studies.:Object permanence.
   Section::::Variations on colonial nesting in birds.
  
presuppositions: Birds need to learn how to build a nest.
corrections: Birds build nests because of instincts and do not have to learn. 
raw_presuppositions: Birds need to learn how to build a nest. Birds need to learn how to build a nest.
raw_corrections: Birds build nests because of instincts and do not have to learn.  The need to build a nest is part of the genetic code of a bird.