Like the other chanting goshawks, it resembles an accipiter but the tail is shorter and graduated (the feathers increase in length from the edges to the center), and the wings are broader.

[2] Adults have grey head, neck, breast, and upperparts, except for the white or lightly barred uppertail coverts.

[3] It is often found in semidesert, dry bush, and wooded grassland up to 2000 m in southern Ethiopia, Djibouti, western Somalia, eastern Kenya, northeastern Tanzania, and adjacent Uganda.

[2] The eastern chanting goshawk is usually seen in large groups of up to 16, they will always hunt in a pack and ration their finds amongst each other.

[2] Its calls are "a melodious piping rhee-opee-opee-opee, and a short low-pitched kleee-yeu", slightly higher-pitched than those of the dark chanting goshawk,[3] or "pereu-pereu-pereu-repee-repee-repee-repee..." in the nesting season, the source of its name.