In Genesis, Noah first sends out a raven to test whether the floodwaters have receded.
Genesis 8:6–7 says that after forty days Noah opens the window and sends out a raven. The raven goes back and forth until the waters dry from the earth. Noah then sends a dove on successive occasions, making the raven the first bird named in this testing sequence.
This detail is easy to confuse with the dove that returns with an olive leaf. The dove is sent after the raven, and its return provides a different sign about the condition of the land. Since the two birds have separate roles, “a raven” is the specific answer to the question about the first bird.
The account uses the birds as practical signs within the story: Noah cannot simply see the entire landscape from the Ark, so he tests the environment through their behavior. The passage does not claim that the birds mapped the whole earth; it describes a focused sequence as the waters receded.