A large hawk of New Guinea’s hill forests, its usual plumage has chestnut and black upperparts and a white underside streaked with black.
In the usual plumage, the upperparts are chestnut with blackish spots, the flight feathers are dark, and the tail is barred. The underside is white with black streaks, the head dark grey, and the cheeks and chin white.
In lower montane rainforest it hunts birds from a perch and may also search while soaring.
A black plumage morph occurs. An adult female collected on the middle Sepik River in 1912 was black above and below, with pale grey bars remaining beneath the flight and tail feathers.
Adult irises are yellow to greenish yellow.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.