They sit upright on perches for prolonged periods and soar on thermals in search of insect and small vertebrate prey.

[2] The only confusion can occur in places where it overlaps with the grey-faced buzzard (Butastur indicus), adults of which have a distinctive white supercilium.

[3][4] Fledgelings are reddish brown, unlike most other downy raptor chicks, which tend to be white.

[6] The species was described on the basis of specimens collected by James Franklin who placed it in the genus Circus along with the harriers.

Molecular phylogeny studies suggest that the genus is a sister group of Buteo and its relatives within the subfamily Buteoninae.

[3] A survey in the late 1950s estimated about 5000 birds in the vicinity of Delhi in an area of about 50,000 km2 giving a density of 0.1 per square kilometre.

[17] Both sexes share nest-building and feeding young; the female alone incubates for about 19 days until the eggs hatch.

[21] A species of nematode, Contracaecum milvi, has been recorded in the liver and the stomach[22] while Acanthocephalans, Mediorhynchus gibson and M. fatimae, has been described from the gut of specimens from Pakistan.

[25] A study of power lines in Rajasthan in 2011 found white-eyed buzzards to be the second most common raptor killed by electrocution after kestrels.