There are two categories of birds: one type born blind, featherless, and dependent upon their parents for food. The other category has some type of feathers, can get up and run, is good at camouflage, and can feed itself quickly.
The two types are Altricial and Precocial.
Think about birds in their nest relying on their parents to provide food like robins. Born blind and helpless, these are called Altricial.
Precocial birds, on the other hand, get out of the nest fast, are good at camouflage, and follow their parents, or nest-mates like ducks.
Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz, the famous Austrian animal zoologist who studied animal behaviors, coined the term imprinting. Imprinting means, if a precocial bird, like a duck, imprints, it helps the duck bond with members of its own species (to help them mate) on the first organism it saw moving.
Altricial birds – those needing lots of parental care, do not imprint, but tend to have more complex social structures, and have more developed brains.
For further reading either Google types of birds or Frontiers in Zoology