1) pick an animal with a particular behavior;

2) create a story about people who display similar behaviors because of some desire, conflict, problem, etc.;

3) when the story leads to sadness or has an unhappy ending, have the gods change the person/people into the animal(s) as a way of recompense, or revenge, for what has happened.

Example: sea birds fly around the shore and mate there.

Story: A man and woman are in love. The man has to go to sea on a voyage, where he drowns. The woman misses him terribly and is continually distraught, not knowing what happened to him. She prays to the gods. The gods send her a dream where her dead lover tells her, “I have drowned. My body will wash up on the shore. Please bury it. I love you forever.” She goes to the shore, finds his body, and gives him a funeral by the shore. She dies of sorrow too. But for her sorrow the gods turn her and her lover into mew-gulls, birds that always stay together by the sea.

(That story, by the way, is a rough summary of Ovid’s myth of Ceyx and Alcione.)

Love, sorrow, and loss are always good for transformations, in myth as in real life.

Good luck!

Arachne was a mortal of low status and Athena pitied her and taught her to weave and soon everyone came flocking to see Arachne’s beautiful weaving, but soon she grew disrespectful of the gods and depicted awful scenes of the gods’ brutality. Athena grew angry with her. Arachne realized her great flaw and killed herself. Then Athena, was saddened to hear the death of Arachne and decided to turn her into a spider so she could forever weave.