What could cause an avian species to become intelligent?
There have been a few questions about an intelligent avian species lately and they have gotten me thinking.
It seems to me that it would be hard for an avian species to evolve to be more intelligent past a certain point. The main problem being that I can't imagine the immediate benefits of being more intelligent would outweigh the drawbacks of being heavier because of it (at least on a planet similar to earth).
One thing that does speak in favor of intelligent bird is that they have appendages which are not often used for moving around (in the air) available. Being able to use those more creatively might pose a large advantage. Sadly I can't imagine those appendages being positioned in a way that makes them useful for intricate manipulation of the environment. (don't dwell too much on appendages in your answer, there are plenty of reasons a species could become intelligent)
So the question is: What would cause (or could explain) an avian species to naturally become more and more intelligent to the point of sapience and beyond (and remain largely airborne)?
This question assumes a planet similar (but not necessarily identical) to Earth.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/3049. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Let me add another point of view. Most answers assume that the large brain evolved in order to gain intelligence. However, I've once read another hypothesis (unfortunately I don't remember where): The human brain originally grew big because humans were in an environment where the brain would often get damaged; the brain size was originally just redundancy. This also fits with the astonishing plasticity of the brain: If a brain areal is destroyed, the surrounding brain areas can learn to perform the function of the missing brain part. Of course already having a greater brain meant that the additional cost of using it for more complex stuff was much lower, allowing for the evolution of intelligence.
When working on that hypothesis, you'd need to have a reason why the birds would often have brain damages, and why a larger brain with more redundancy (rather than strategies for avoiding the brain damage) would be advantageous despite negatively affecting flight.
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