Messenger hawk

History
Messenger Hawks are moderately sized birds of prey with dark red or brown feathers all over their bodies and two long plumes falling from their tails. The leg feathers are white. In domestic use, they has a canister on its back for transporting message scrolls. These hawks are used to delivered important messages throughout the Fire Nation. For example: When someone needs to send a message to the Fire Lord, they tie a black ribbon to the hawk, indicating its urgent nature.

Messenger Hwaks seem to be the main tool in regular communication in the Fire Nation also. Messenger Hwaks can be bought at post offices, such as the one located in Fire Fountain City. Sokka recently bought a Messenger Hawk, Hawky.

The Messenger Hawk was fisrt seen in the episode, "The Blue Spirit."

Connection
The Messenger hawks can be connected to messenger pigeons, especially homing pigeons. Homing pigeons were used to carry important military messages, much like the messenger hawk is in Avatar. Pigeons can only transport messages to one specific location and back.