According to Genesis, a dove returned with a fresh olive leaf after the Flood.
Genesis 8 describes Noah sending birds from the Ark to discover whether the waters had receded. He first sent a raven, which went back and forth. Noah then sent a dove, but it initially found no place to rest. After seven days, he sent the dove again, and it returned in the evening carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf.
Noah understood the leaf as evidence that the waters had diminished from the earth. He waited another seven days before sending the dove a third time; that dove did not return. The sequence is therefore more detailed than the familiar short phrase “the dove brought an olive branch.”
The olive leaf became a widely recognized symbol of peace and hope in later art and culture. Genesis itself presents it first as a practical sign that vegetation and habitable land were reappearing.