Long-tailed finch length. It has a prominent roundish black bib on its throat and upper chest and a long pointed black tail. It has pinkish brown upperparts with paler plumage below its bib over the lower breast and abdomen. It has a grey head, a white ear-patch, and black lores. It has black patches on its upper flanks and its rump and undertail coverts are white. The beak colour of the adult long-tailed finch varies from red through orange to yellow. The subspecies with red beaks is sometimes called Heck's grass finch "Poephila acuticauda hecki", and the nominate subspecies with orange or
Purple-backed fairywren ear tufts are prominently featured in breeding displays. The male in breeding plumage has striking bright blue ear coverts and blue-purple crown and forehead, a black throat and nape, a blue-purple upper back, chestnut shoulders and a bluish-grey tail. The wings are drab brown and the belly white. Within subspecies "assimilis", the plumage of both sexes is becomes paler from east to west across its range, with those of northwestern Australia paler still. Non-breeding males, females and juveniles of subspecies "assimilis" are predominantly grey-brown in colour, while those of subspecies "rogersi" and "dulcis" are mainly blue-grey. Males of all subspecies