The god
Ra was portrayed as a falcon and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus. At times the two deities were merged as Ra-Horakhty, "Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons". In the New Kingdom, when the god Amun rose to prominence he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra.
The Bennu Bird symbol
The Bennu bird is one of the most famous symbols in Ancient Egypt mythology and religion. This legendary creature was known to represent resurrection and a rising sun.
Ra is the god of the sun and the king or father of all Egyptian gods. He's often shown in human form with a hawk head, a golden disk with a serpent on top of his head as a crown, a scepter in his left hand, and an ankh in his right hand. The ankh was the ancient Egyptian symbol for life.
However, in the second scene, the bird above Osiris's phallus is identified as a vulture, and seemingly represents the goddess Nekhbet. In the third scene, the cognate bird is identified as 'the Falcon of Gold' – an epithet of Horus.
Anubis was an ancient Egyptian god of the dead, represented as a jackal or a man with the head of a jackal.
The gods Horus and Thoth from ancient Egyptian mythology were often depicted as humans with the heads of a falcon and an ibis, respectively. Huitzilopochtli, "hummingbird's south" or "hummingbird's left"; Aztec god of the sun and war who was often depicted as either a hummingbird or an eagle.
In ancient Egypt, the ibis was one manifestation of Thoth, the god associated with divine knowledge and writing. The breed of ibis specifically sacred to Thoth is the African Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) which became extinct in Egypt in the mid-19th century.
Khonsu, the ancient Egyptian moon-god, was depicted either as a falcon wearing the moon-disk on his head (left) or as a human child.
Thus, the so-called 'Horus falcon' belongs among the most frequently depicted birds in ancient Egypt, both in hieroglyphs and art (Malek et al, n.d.) Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, was often depicted as a falcon-headed god.
The wings of Isis symbolize either female falcons or kites, which are birds of prey that have cries "reminiscent of the cries of distraught women" (Lesko 163). In this way, the wings represent both power and mourning.
Geb was usually portrayed as a man without any distinguishing characteristics, but at times he was represented with his head surmounted by a goose, the hieroglyph of his name.
However, instead of telling his name, Ra boasts of his creation of the earth and mountains and of his power to make the Nile rise (206). He tells Isis some of his other names--"I am Khepera in the morning, Ra at noon-day, and Temu in the evening" (207)-- but he will not surrender his secret name.
Amun is depicted as a goose, snake, or ram, and also as a man with the head of a ram, frog, royal cobra, crocodile, or ape. Amun-Ra was the father and protector of the pharaoh, and was the subject of a cult.
Ra is the all-powerful God of the Sun and Light. Responsible for the existence of all creation, he stays aboard his divine vessel and fights the demonic creature Apophis night after night to ensure that the world is never destroyed by chaos.
What kind of bird? Well, in ancient Egyptian iconography, the deity Khonshu was sometimes depicted with the head of a falcon. But the Khonshu of modern Marvel comics often has a particularly huge raven-like beak (just like the one in Moon Knight on Disney Plus), probably because it looks cool and creepy.
As a god, Khonshu can take different physical forms. He often appears as a figure dressed in white, with a large bird skull for a head (it's just as terrifying as it sounds). But in Ancient Egypt, he posed as a human pharaoh in the city of Thebes, as seen in THOR & HERCULES: ENCYCLOPAEDIA MYTHOLOGICA #1.
The sacred ibis, a bird that was venerated in Ancient Egypt, is an example of how birds were a significant part of Egyptian culture.
Seth (Set), son of Geb (Earth) and Nut (sky), brother of Osiris, was god of the desert, foreign lands, thunderstorms, eclipses, and earthquakes. Seth was a powerful and often frightening deity, however he was also a patron god of the pharaohs, particularly Ramses the Great.
A mother goddess in the Old Kingdom, Sekhmet was associated with Ptah as his consort during the New Kingdom. But she is best known as the Eye of the Sun, the violent, dazzling and protecting aspect of the creator god. Her name, “the Powerful one,” is best illustrated by her fearful appearance as a lion-headed woman.
Anthus himself was metamorphosed into a bird called "anthus" which imitated the neighing of a horse, but always fled from the sight of a horse. His servant, who failed to protect the master, was transformed into a white heron. The bird genus Anthus is thus named after him.
The alkonost, the sirin, the caladrius, the roc and the phoenix are all five mythical birds from legend and folklore. Each were attributed their own magical qualities and roles by various human societies in history and presented here is a brief description of these five fabled creatures.
Eagles in antiquity
They were considered endowed with oracular properties, and a divine bird, as messenger of Zeus and herald of victory. In fact, Zeus himself is said to have transformed himself into an eagle on occasion.
Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the Atef crown, which is similar to the White crown of Upper Egypt, but with the addition of two curling ostrich feathers at each side.