page_title: Bird nest
section_title: Platform
hierarchical_section_title: Bird nest / Types / Platform
caption_attribution_description: English: Australasian Grebe, Tachybaptus novaehollandiae, Parent covering eggs in floating nest Source: Own work, Perth, Australia Date: February 2007 Author: Keith Lightbody Permission: All uses, with attribution
context_page_description: A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the Montezuma oropendola or the village weaver—that is too restrictive a definition. For some species, a nest is simply a shallow depression made in sand; for others, it is the knot-hole left by a broken branch, a burrow dug into the ground, a chamber drilled into a tree, an enormous rotting pile of vegetation and earth, a shelf made of dried saliva or a mud dome with an entrance tunnel. The smallest bird nests are those of some hummingbirds, tiny cups which can be a mere 2 cm across and 2–3 cm high. At the other extreme, some nest mounds built by the dusky scrubfowl measure more than 11 m in diameter and stand nearly 5 m tall. The study of birds' nests is known as caliology.
  Not all bird species build nests.
context_section_description: The platform nest is a large structure, often many times the size of the (typically large) bird which has built it. Depending on the species, these nests can be on the ground or elevated.
  In the case of raptor nests, or eyries (also spelt aerie), these are often used for many years, with new material added each breeding season. In some cases, the nests grow large enough to cause structural damage to the tree itself, particularly during bad storms where the weight of the nest can cause additional stress on wind-tossed branches.
caption: Some waterbirds, including the grebes, build floating platform nests.
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