Ornithomancy
Divination from the flight, calls and behaviour of birds, known to the Romans as taking the auspices.
Also: augury, augur, bird omens, auspices
Ornithomancy reads the will of the gods in birds. Roman augurs, a public college of priests, marked out a sacred space of sky and watched where birds flew and how they called. Their findings decided whether an election, a battle or a law could go ahead, and the word auspice, from avis spicere, means to watch birds. Greek seers did the same, and the practice is found in many cultures, from Mesopotamia and the Celtic world to Polynesia and the Yoruba. Augury was a sober state institution, not private fortune-telling. Cicero, himself an augur, doubted its truth but defended its social value. The word inauguration comes from the rites that confirmed a leader.