Adult males are dark grey above with white tips on the wing coverts and tail feathers, and heavily barred below.

The eye has a yellow iris in adults, dark in immatures; the bill is blackish with a paler base, and the legs stout, grey-brown.

The latter is marginally paler and less heavily barred than the nominate subspecies, but they are barely distinct and intergrade where the ranges meet.

[8] The barred warbler is a bird of open country with bushes for nesting, with very similar habitat preferences to the red-backed shrike.

[9] The vast majority of British and Irish records are of first-year birds, with adults occurring only exceptionally rarely.