Why did Poe choose a Raven instead of another bird to be in his poem "The Raven"?
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Because nobody would have wanted to read a poem called "The Yellow Crested Titwillow".
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The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April.\nWhat seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April.\nIt has been suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [2]. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of January. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair game for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. However, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day’s origin is correct. Well before 1582, when King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April.\nThough the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a common custom. In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. In France the person fooled is known as poisson d'avril. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the sun quits the zodiacal sign of the fish. A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a young fish and therefore easily caught.\nThe Dutch have their own reason. Back in 1572, the Netherlands were still ruled by Spain's King Phillip II. There were roaming Dutch rebels who called themselves Geuzen, after the French "gueux", meaning beggars. On April 1, 1572, they took a small coastal town called Den Briel. This event was also the start of the general civil rising against the Spanish in other cities in the Netherlands. General Alva of the Spanish army could not do much. Bril is the Dutch word for glasses, so on April 1, 1572, "Alva lost his glasses". Dutch people find this joke so hilarious they still commemorate the first of April.\nIn 1400, Chaucer refers to March 32 (April 1) in the Nun's Priest's Tale, Chanticleer and the Fox, which is a story of a rooster and a fox, both made fools of by their pride.
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I have a dictionary of quotations and did a search on the web.  Although I found a song by that title, I think the saying has to do with the elaborate mating rituals of birds.  They have evolved plumage and rituals that are associated with finding a mate.  Perhaps spending time on these sorts of things is "for the birds"?
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The symbolism in the film is linked nicely to some of its major themes, while at the same time it creates a deep emotional tie between Ichabod and Katrina. Ichabod’s talisman, a two-sided card with a red cardinal on one side and a cage on the other, was given to him by his mother. The cardinal represents his mother, a free and beautiful bird, while the cage represents the evil men who executed her as a witch. When Ichabod comes across a dead cardinal in a witch’s cave, he recognizes it as an omen.
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Actually, it isn't that the country of Turkey has the same name as the bird; it's that the bird has the same name as the country.\n\nThe country's name came first...then the bird's name came along later in history.
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Edgar Allan Poe, Writer \n\nBorn: 19 January 1809 \nBirthplace: Boston, Massachusetts \nDied: 7 October 1849 \nBest Known As: Author of "The Raven" \nEdgar Allan Poe's classic poem "The Raven" cemented his reputation as a black-feathered literary master of the macabre. In the late 1820s and early 1830s Poe mixed poetry with work as a soldier in the U.S. Army. He was dismissed from West Point and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he began writing prose. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s Poe worked on various magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia and New York, and also published creepy short stories and poems, including "The Purloined Letter," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado." His story The Murders in the Rue Morgue is widely considered to be the first modern detective story, with Poe the forerunner of later masters of the craft like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Never in robust health, and a heavy drinker into the bargain, Poe died under mysterious circumstances at age 40 after visiting Virginia to lecture. He was found languishing on the street in Baltimore and taken unconscious to a local hospital, where he died.\n\nPoe's detective in The Murders in the Rue Morgue was named C. Auguste Dupin... Baltimore's National Football League team, the Ravens, is named in whimsical tribute to Poe's famous poem... Since the 100th anniversary of Poe's death in 1949, an anonymous visitor has come to Poe's grave each year on the writer's birthday, leaving three roses and a bottle of cognac. By tradition no one attempts to follow the "Poe Toaster" and his identity remains unknown. However, it is presumed others have taken over for the original visitor... Poe wrote an 1836 essay unmasking the chess-playing automaton The Turk as a human-powered fraud.
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The bird is the Mocking Bird\nand the flower is, the Iris
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The phoenix is also called the Fire Bird.  It was supposed to die in flames, then resurrect it self from the ashes and live again.
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Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to narrative forms of the emergent science fiction genre.[1] Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is possibly believed to be from drug related problems.\n\nContents [hide]\n1 The life of Edgar Allan Poe \n2 Death \n3 "Memoir" – Griswold's biography of Edgar Allan Poe \n4 Literary and artistic theory \n5 Legacy and lore \n5.1 American literature \n5.2 Influence on French literature \n5.3 Other world literature \n5.3.1 England \n5.3.2 Russia \n5.3.3 Other Countries \n5.4 Detective fiction \n5.5 Science fiction, gothic fiction and horror fiction \n5.6 Playwrights and filmmakers \n5.7 Physics and cosmology \n5.8 Cryptography \n5.9 Music \n5.10 Visual arts \n5.11 Pop culture \n5.12 Preserved home \n5.13 Imitators \n6 Adaptations \n7 Selected Poe-related films \n8 Poe as a character \n9 Notes \n10 General references \n11 External links \n11.1 About Poe \n11.2 Works \n \n\n\n[edit]\nThe life of Edgar Allan Poe\n \nThis bust of Edgar Allan Poe is found at the University of Virginia where, having gambled away his tuition funds, he dropped out in 1827.Edgar Allan Poe was born to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. The son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. Both parents died when Edgar was 3 years old. Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Although his middle name is often misspelled as "Allen," it is actually "Allan," after this family.\n\nAfter attending the Manor School at Stoke Newington, Poe attended the Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House boarding school in the fall of 1818. The Manor House was located in the village of Stoke Newington; only four miles north of London. Poe moved back to the Allans in Richmond in 1820. After serving an apprenticeship in Pawtucket, Poe registered at the University of Virginia in 1826, but only stayed there for one year. He became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts Poe had acquired while trying to get more spending money, so Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private using the name Edgar A. Perry on May 26, 1827. That same year, he released his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, which now is such a rare book that a surviving copy has been sold for $200,000. After serving for two years and attaining the rank of sergeant major, Poe was discharged.\n\nIn 1829, Poe's foster mother, Frances Allan, died, and he published his second book, Al Aaraf. As his foster mother's dying wish, Poe reconciled with his foster father, who coordinated an appointment for him to the United States Military Academy at West Point. At West Point however, Poe supposedly deliberately disobeyed orders and was dismissed. After that, Poe and his foster father disowned each other until the latter's death on March 6, 1831.\n\nPoe next moved to Baltimore, Maryland with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Poe's first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm. Poe wrote fiction to support himself, and in December 1835, began editing the Southern Literary Messenger for Thomas W. White in Richmond. On May 16, 1836, he married Virginia, who was 13 at the time.\n\n[edit]\nDeath\n \nEdgar Allan Poe's reburial celebration on November 17, 1875 at Westminster graveyard.On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance," according to the man who found him. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died early on the morning of October 7. Poe was neve
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**********************************************************************\n\nDon't feel bad. Nobody explained it to me, either, and I must say I made quite an impression that first night with the honey and feathers. But now I'm hip. The significance of the birds and bees isn't what they do, it's simply that they do it, "it," naturally, being a tussle in the tumbleweeds, or wherever it is that the lower orders engage in sex. As such it's the perfect euphemism for a culture so prudish that even publishers of girlie magazines used to airbrush out the pubic hair.\n\nWhere exactly "the birds and the bees" originated nobody knows, but word sleuths William and Mary Morris hint that it may have been inspired by words like these from the poet Samuel Coleridge: "All nature seems at work ... The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing ... and I the while, the sole unbusy thing, not honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing." Making honey, pairing ... yes, we can definitely tell what Sam had on his mind.\n\nThe Morrises offer the theory that schools in years past taught about sex by "telling how birds do it and how bees do it and trusting that the youngsters would get the message by indirection." Right. Luckily for the perpetuation of the species, there's always been Louie in the schoolyard to explain how things really worked.\n\n*********************************************************************
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Ravens and all birds are considered to be messengers. As I speak there are 4 outside picking up the deer corn. Do I consider this a message. No. But last year one came and sat on the top of the gazebo and wouldn't shut up. Very annoying. About an hour later the phone rang. My daughter had just been rushed into the hospital in premature labor. What's really great about the ravens is they have a plan. About 10 or more get together and each has it's own job. One takes one road and the other ones have thier own road to monitor. When one finds food, they call to the next one, which calls to the next one and pretty soon all of them are there eating. Owls on the other hand are considered messengers of death or soon to be dead. So watch those hooters. Oh, and usually if you see an eagle, a raven is not far away. Well, where I live anyway. I just answered this ? yesterday. Now as i sit here typing, there's a Bald Eagle sitting out on the ice in front of our house. And inching closer. The only thing I can figure is, the ravens were here yesterday eating. If he's bringing a messenger... This has never happened before. Maybe I should go out there. Oh...he's walking this way!! For true.
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the hawk in the beginning, changed to the fox because the hawk \ncustume made him look to much like big bird,and R.I.P.
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Such devices bring out the full flavor of words. Comparison and association are sometimes strengthened by syllables which imitate or reproduce the sounds they describe. When this occurs, it is called onomatopoeia (a Greek word meaning name-making "), for the sounds literally make the meaning in such words as "buzz," "crash," "whirr," "clang" "hiss," "purr," "squeak," "mumble," "hush," "boom." Poe lets us hear the different kinds of sounds made by different types of bells in his famous poem "The Bells." His choice of the right word gives us the right sound when he speaks of "tinkling" sleigh bells; "clanging" fire bells; mellow "chiming" wedding bells; "tolling," "moaning," and "groaning" funeral bells.
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From Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", Chapter 7 "A Mad Tea Party", the Mad Hatter asks Alice, the riddle is "Why is a raven like a writing-desk"?\nMany answers have been given for this riddle from many people. Carroll himself, though, actually supplied one in a new preface of his 1896 edition of "Alice." He said "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front." Note the spelling of "never" as "nevAr." Carroll clearly intended to spell "raven" backwards. The word was corrected to "never" in later printings, perhaps by an editor who fancied he had caught a printer's error. Because Carroll died soon after this "correction" destroyed the cleverness of his answer, the original spelling was never restored.
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There is a saying that goes something like this--birds of a feather flock together.
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I totally agree with the inference of your question. I have read the answers and looked up a suggested site that presents both sides of the argument - a very good reference.\nMy pet (pun intended) contradiction is about the number of birds that went into Noah's Ark. Gen. 6:20 ≠ Gen. 7:3  \n\nFirst let me say, that I only see a literal contradiction, the meaning or spirit of the story of Noah and the flood is far more important than the contradictions in detail.\n\nThe explanation by the apologist is that the reference to two animals refers to the order the animals boarded the Ark, so allowing for seven pairs of the same species of animal.\n\nFor me, a reasonable explanation of the difference is that one root story (Ch 6) came from a tribe  where the animals would be seen as only being needed for propagation, while the other root story (Ch 7) was from a tribe where, clean animals would have been needed for food supplies as well as propagation.\n\nThe answer to your question is I suggest, that those who hold to a literal interpretation, deny the contradiction by going to extreem lengths of explaination to maintain the possibility of literal truth.  They do this because literal truth is an easier to argue, than finding a compassionate integration of God's message into the reality of human life.
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The Chicken/hen came first.\n\nGenesis 1:20  And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.