In Genesis’s account of Noah’s Ark, Noah sent out a raven before sending the dove. Genesis 8:7 says he released the raven after the waters began to recede.
The raven is the first bird named in this part of the story. The passage says it went back and forth until the waters had dried from the earth. Noah then sent a dove to test whether the floodwaters had receded from the surface.
The dove receives more attention in popular retellings because it later returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf and is sent out again. That episode is separate from the raven’s earlier release. Another common confusion is to identify the first bird as the dove simply because the dove is the story’s best-known bird symbol.