I'm wondering for how long a raven can stay continuously airborne, if strained to do so? If it makes a difference, I'm mostly interested in the Common raven, Corvus corax. Are there for instance any information on long-distance dispersal (wind-blown individuals over sea?) that can be used to roughly estimate this? Information on other corvid species could also be interesting, as a rough proxy.
If you are wondering, my motivation for asking is the biblical story in Genesis 6–8 (the deluge of Noah). Here, Noah sends out a raven and a dove to look for land. From the story it appears as if the raven can stay airborne for a longer time than the dove, which returns to the ark to rest. Is there any realism in the claim that a raven can stay airborne for one or maybe even two weeks?
Some background from Genesis 8 (this translation):
After forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark. He sent out the raven, and it departed. It went back and forth until the water had dried up from the land's surface. He then sent out the dove to see if the water had subsided from the land's surface. The dove could not find any place to rest its feet, and it returned to him, to the ark. There was still water over all the earth's surface. [Noah] stretched out his hand, and brought it to him in the ark. He waited another seven days, and once again sent the dove out from the ark. The dove returned to him toward evening, and there was a freshly-plucked olive leaf in its beak. Noah then knew that the water had subsided from the earth. He waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove [again]. This time it did not return to him any more.
So the raven couldn't find a place to land, and it flew around until it could do so. A week later, the dove still couldn't find a place to land, but a week later it could. Thus, either (a) the raven was flying around for more than a week (as much as two weeks) or (b) the raven could more readily land in a wet area than the dove. Can either of these be true?
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