Although the magical elements of Other Birds are not rooted in any one particular culture, the novel’s connection drawn between birds and other worlds or planes of existence is present in European, Asian, and South and Central American folklore. Birds have long been believed to be messengers or representations of the dead. This likely comes from their ability to be equally comfortable on land and in the sky; very few other animals are completely at home in more than one element. This ability often symbolizes crossing boundaries between our world and another. For instance, cultural traditions in the South Sea Islands and parts of Africa have used bird imagery in their funerary rites to guide the dead into the afterlife. In Irish folklore, seagulls are the manifestations of sailors lost at sea. This is very similar to the story Paloma tells about her dead brother returning in the form of a bird.

Spiritual practitioners all over the world, historically as well as today, have held the belief that birds can be used as spiritual guides to learn more about other worlds. For example, Siberian shamans and those from Indigenous American tribes hold that birds bring sacred knowledge to sensitive human beings, or that they could be restless spirits of the dead.