Some birds do hardly anything at all. Builders of scrape nests do just that: scrape. The bird merely uses its body to nestle out a shallow depression, the negative space of a nest.

Common with birds as diverse as the piping plover, peregrine falcon, and ostrich (as seen above), scrapes, when successful, are deep enough to provide shelter from the elements and the eyes of predators, but high enough to not be chilled or washed away by water.