The adults resemble zone-tailed hawks, but have fewer white bars on their tail and are larger in size.

The bird builds a platform nest of sticks fifteen to one hundred feet above the ground in a tree, often a mangrove.

It has hybridized naturally with the red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) in Sonoma County, California, USA.

[5][6][7] The common black hawk also supplements its diet with a variety of insects, including grasshoppers, caterpillars and wasp larvae.

The common black hawk is protected in the far north of its range (in the USA) under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.