The Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla, is a rare vagrant to Southern Africa with one record from Mellville Koppies, Johannesburg, South Africa (Sinclair 1987). Blackcaps are generally palearctic migrants through East Africa to Malawi and the Eastern Highlands in Zimbabwe. The preferred habitat in this southern limit of their migratory range seems to be the fringes of Afromontane forest above 1500 m. In Europe it prefers mature forest with tall shrubby undergrowth (Cramp 1992). In Europe it favours deciduous forest and mixed woodland (Svensson et al. 1999). Möwe Bay is situated on the hyper arid Atlantic coast at -19.372° S 12.709° E in the Skeleton Coast Park. Open gravel plains with small coppice dunes dominate the coastal plain that is separated from inland by an extensive dune field. This is a harsh landscape unsuited to supporting a bird favouring more vegetated and wooded habitat.