The Desert Cisticola is a small bird of dry grassland and scrub. During breeding, males and females differ in their crown pattern and forage in low grass.
In breeding plumage, the male has a brown crown and dark bill, gape, and bare skin in front of the eye. The female retains a streaked crown during breeding.
It picks spiders, grasshoppers, and beetles from low grass and bare ground. It builds a pear-shaped nest of dry grass, fastened with spider web to a grass tuft near the ground.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.