Which bird did Noah send first from Noah’s Ark?

Noah first sent a raven from Noah’s Ark, according to Genesis.

Genesis 8:7 says that Noah released a raven after the waters began to recede. The raven went back and forth until the waters dried from the earth. Noah then sent a dove to look for a sign that dry land had returned.

The dove is more famous because Genesis describes its later flights in detail. On its second return, it brought a freshly plucked olive leaf, showing Noah that the waters had diminished. The familiar olive-branch image therefore belongs to the dove episode, not the first bird release.

The sequence is raven first, followed by the dove’s three mentioned flights. Later retellings sometimes mention only the dove, which can obscure the earlier raven scene in the biblical chronology.