With blue-green and purple gloss and a long tail, this starling uses open places with trees, often in groups, and also feeds on the ground.
The lower back and upper tail coverts are purple, and the rump has a bronze sheen. The wings are blue-green; the chin to breast has a purple gloss over blue-green. Its long graduated tail is blue-violet with dark cross-barring.
It favours seasonally flooded open areas with tall trees such as mopane and baobab. Groups may reach about 10 birds, and they spend much time on the ground. Its foods include insects disturbed by African elephants, termites, scarab beetles, flowers, and fruit.
Both sexes build a cup of dead plant material in a tree hole, and the female incubates the eggs.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.