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Grey Grasswrens are small, grey-brown birds with long tails. As opposed to other species of Australian grasswrens, their cryptic plumage is not dimorphic, but the two sexes are alike. Their frons, sides of the head and "bib" are white, with a pattern of black lines. There is a horizontal black eye-stripe, plus a black line across the body below the throat that, on both sides of the neck, ends in a "V"-shaped bifurcation. The chest is streaked dark-grey on white. The belly is white to cinnamon or fawn. The back is brownish-grey, with dark-grey and white cryptic streaking down to the mantle. The flight feathers are brown with light-grey centres. The very long tail feathers have a prominent off-white quill; otherwise they are dark-brown with lighter-brown to grey edges. A difference between the sexes in the prominence of their black facial markings (weaker in females than in males) is hard to see in the field. Their irises are dark-brown. The short, stout bill is dark-grey. Legs and feet are black. Juveniles have duller colours than adults. Except for a thin black eye-stripe they do not have a facial mask yet.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The overall distribution of the Grey Grasswren is available HERE .

NB: Reports on ebird of birds submitted by birdwatchers from the Australian Outback tend to be clustered along roads and public areas such as camp grounds; in such cases their distribution is not a good representation of the overall distribution of the species.

Grey Grasswrens are endemic to Australia. As is the case with all species of grasswrens, their overall distribution is complex, patchy and highly irregular. Some races also have very restricted ranges. This is mainly caused by the fact that grasswrens are rather poor fliers and individual populations, once separated, will not merge again, leading to a separation of the gene pools.This species has a restricted range, with populations scattered in a patchy distribution. There are two races of Grey Grasswrens: Nominate race "barbatus" occurs only in a small area around the Bulloo River, in the border region of SW QLD with NW NSW. Most of that population resides within the newly created Narriearra Caryapundy Swamp NP. Race "diamantina" resides in a roughly "L"-shaped area spanning from the Cooper Creek near Durham, QLD, into north-eastern SA, from about Eradunna, SA, via Birdsville, QLD, to Bedourie, QLD, in far south-western QLD.

Grey Grasswrens have a strong preference for lignum swamps, in which they favour the tallest lignum.

Race "diamantina"