My research shows that world-wide folklore has many references to Birds, as protagonists and powerful beings...

The Legend: Many tales are told of Raven, who can be compared to Prometheus; both were credited with giving the power of fire to the people of the earth. The raven is said to have stolen the sun. The Raven is also known as a trickster that can change form to accomplish a task, in the same way that humans can have many sides to their personalities.

Other Cultures: The Raven is cross cultural and for a hundred thousand years the greatest of the Gods was the Raven or Crow. He was the dream carrier who brought civilization to the people in paleaolithic times. Mammoth ivory carvings depict a goddess with the raptor traits of a bird - talons and a beaked face but with bare breasts. The ancient greeks called this God Cronos, the god of time. Another avatar was the Norse god Odin, and to the Celts --as well as aboriginal North American nations-- this black bird carried the cosmic significance of the Great Benefactor, the Creator of the visible world. The Germanic and Siberian tribes also worshiped the Raven as an oracular healer. In China the black feathered predator was the first of the imperial emblems, representing yang. Midieval alchemists called the Raven "The Shadow of the Sun". When as humans we've gone as far as our bodies and imagination can take us, we meet the Eternal ones. The powers that built our flesh out of the mineral accidents of star dust and that are now building our individual fates out of time and the essence of our hearts, are timeless and spaceless, and the Raven emerges out of this super realm with the appetite of the Eternal Ones for the mortal incarnations of this world.