The African hawk-eagle is powerfully built and hunts small to medium-sized mammals and birds predominantly, occasionally taking reptiles and other prey as well.

These species are all rather larger and morphologically distinct (in adaptation to their open country habits) from the Bonelli's and African hawk-eagles and tend to have much more uniform and darker ventral plumages.

Furthermore the four other traditional members of the Aquila genus have been revealed to be a separate species complex despite showing superficial similarity to the golden eagle group, i.e. being relatively large and long winged with usually rather uniform and dark (typically brownish) colours.

At a distance, they may appear purely black-and-white but at close range they show sparse but extensive white flecks on the mantle and wing coverts.

[3][5][18] In flight, the African hawk-eagle appears as a mid-sized raptor with a rather small but well-protruding head, a longish tail and wings that are neither particularly long nor broad.

Adult African hawk-eagle possess on the upperside of their wings a significant pale whitish-grey window on the base of their primaries, extending into dark grey panels across the black-tipped secondaries.

The greater coverts show various solid black diagonal markings that coalesce and create a signature appearance from below in a flying adult African hawk-eagle.

[3][20][29] There are a few other largely black dorsally and white ventrally largish raptors in sub-Saharan Africa but the African hawk-eagle is the largest and comes the closest to being typically aquiline in bearing and morphology.

Compared to the Cassin's hawk-eagle, the African species is larger, shorted tailed and much longer winged, with a much more heavily marked underbody, denser black about the mid-wings and barely barred quills.

[3] At a distance, the African hawk-eagle's flight profile can recall that of the European honey-buzzard (Pernis apivorus) but the head is even smaller in that species.

The call is sometimes considered not unlike that of the often sympatric Wahlberg's eagle (Hieraaetus wahlbergi) but that of the African hawk-eagle tends to be less drawn out and more mellow in tone.

[33] Here the species may be found into southern Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, eastern Guinea, northernmost Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, the northern portions of Ghana, Togo and Benin and north-central Nigeria.

[33][43][48] Access to waterways, typically rivers, including ephemeral ones, and watering holes, is not infrequent, especially since they permit tall trees in otherwise fairly dry regions of Africa and also often hold concentrations of prey.

[54][55][56] One tandem hunting pair of African hawk-eagles appeared to remarkably make use of a mesh fence to drive guineafowl into in a cunning strategy to prevent their escape.

[3] Largish ground feeding birds, such as francolins, spurfowls and guineafowls as well as mostly the smaller species of bustards and hornbills, seem to be the primary prey of African hawk-eagle.

Secondary prey in Tsavo East were red-crested korhaan (Lophotis ruficrista) (at 12.7%), common dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula) (at 9.2%) and unstriped ground squirrel (Xerus rutilus) and eastern yellow-billed hornbill (Tockus flavirostris) (both at 7.2%).

[3] Seemingly infrequently taken birds have been known to include ostrich chicks, geese, plovers, cuckoos, herons and egrets, ibises, and a small diversity of passerines.

[4][17][31][49][60] Assorted birds taken with some frequency include grey go-away-birds (Crinifer concolor), brown-necked parrots (Poicephalus fuscicollis) and several species of dove.

[4] Other assorted mammals include a few species of squirrels and rats as well as fruit bats, bushbabies, and even those as small as Cape short-eared gerbil (Desmodillus auricularis).

[4][31][49][62] Other large mammalian prey can include South African springhares (Pedetes capensis) and even small vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).

[3][58] The African hawk-eagle is rarely reported to scavenge on carrion but one pair was seen to repeatedly feed on the carcass of a southern reedbuck (Redunca arundinum) over 3 days.

[4][31][58] Predation on other birds of prey is rarely documented, unlike with Bonelli's eagles, but the African hawk-eagle has been known to hunt down barn owls (Tyto alba) and black-winged kites (Elanus caeruleus).

[49] Down to Botswana and northeastern South Africa the nesting season is somewhat variable, recorded from April to October, with egg-laying peaking in June according to one authority.

[4] The species tends to prefer a narrow breeding area with favorable habitat for nesting site, and in one extreme case the same general grove near Pretoria was used by different generations of hawk-eagles from 1912 to 1978.

Only at the age of 24 days can the chicks defend the nest, stand reasonably well and make a few rather clumsy wing exercises; however at this stage they cannot tear meat off of the food that a parent provide.

[31][58] In a study conducted in Zimbabwe in 1988, 116 African hawk-eagle pairs were assessed in terms of breeding success in two areas of varying substrate quality.

[47] The African hawk-eagle is usually a rather sedentary and stable breeding raptor, seldom leaving a devoted area holding good prey numbers and habitat.

[4][5] The mortality of young African hawk-eagles, i.e. under 4 years old, may be extremely high in some localities, up to 75%, mainly due to assorted anthropogenic causes such as persecution and collisions with manmade objects such as wires.

[4] However, one ringed hawk-eagle was found to have moved a distance of 795 km (494 mi) from Limpopo in South Africa to Victoria Falls on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border, perhaps as a response to a prolonged dry spell and resulting diminishing food resources.

[5][76] A 2006 study found that the African hawk eagle, among other raptor species have been declining at high rates outside of protected areas in West Africa and only seem to be stabilizing through the efforts of national parks.