The Australian Owlet-nightjar rests in tree hollows by day and searches for insects at night. Its back can be reddish brown or greyish brown.
Its mottled back is reddish brown or greyish brown and the belly is pale. A dark brown crescent curves from above the eye over the head and around to below the eye.
It roosts in tree hollows by day and catches insects in flight or from the ground at night.
It lines a tree hollow with green leaves and lays two to five eggs. Both sexes build the nest, incubate for about 28 days and care for the chicks.
At night it feeds on insects including grasshoppers, beetles and ants.
In the 1996–1997 and 1999 New South Wales tracking study, all five birds monitored in the cold season used torpor, usually after returning to tree hollows around dawn.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.