Answers about…
kite birds

Kites live in the Middle East, including desert and desert-edge country such as Israel’s Negev. They use open arid land where there is food, water, or people.

Black kites (Milvus migrans) are a very common winter visitor and migrant in modern Israel, especially in northern and central Israel and the northern Negev. Thousands have been counted in winter (Hula Valley and western Negev). It used to breed in Israel; pesticides wiped out nesting in the mid-20th century, and it is treated as regionally extinct as a breeder, though it still pours through on migration and winters in large numbers.

Black kites worldwide uses deserts, along with grassland, savanna, farmland, and towns. They avoid only dense forest and truly barren, foodless sand. They eat carrion, garbage, insects, small animals, and fish, so dumps, roads, farms, and wadis in arid country suit them well.

Black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus) uses open and semi-desert country in Africa and parts of Arabia.

They are not typical of waterless sand with no perches or refuse.

Kites are listed as an unclean and keen-sighted bird of prey (Leviticus 11:14; Deuteronomy 14:13).