A female Crested Fireback is brown, with a short crest, blue facial skin and spotted black-and-white underparts.

This female in Singapore's Jurong Bird Park, has the company of a rare ground dove, known as a Luzon Bleeding-heart Pigeon (fig.).

Like the male, it has bare blue facial skin, pinkish-grey feet and legs, and eyes with red irises.

This bird, of which there are four known subspecies, occurs in lowland forests of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra.