According to Genesis, Noah waited seven days before releasing the dove again. Genesis 8:10 says Noah waited another seven days after the dove first returned, then sent it out once more.
The first dove flight found no place to rest, so the bird returned to Noah in the Ark. On the second flight it came back with a freshly plucked olive leaf. Genesis then says Noah waited another seven days before sending the dove out a third time; it did not return.
The repeated seven-day intervals are part of the narrative's chronology and are separate from the forty days of rain. Readers sometimes combine the waiting periods with the rainfall duration or assume that the olive leaf appeared on the first flight. In the sequence presented by Genesis, the leaf belongs to the second release, after the first seven-day wait.