When habitat at a stopover disappears, birds struggle. Protect the places where you recharge.

Long efforts depend on a few reliable places to stop, and those places are easy to lose without noticing. The friend’s kitchen, the hour before anyone is awake, the court nobody uses on Sunday: these are infrastructure, not luxuries, and they get traded away first when the schedule tightens. Then the whole route gets harder for reasons that look mysterious.

Work out where you actually recover, then put it on the calendar as something that cannot be moved. Say no to one thing this week to keep it. Protecting it in advance is far easier than rebuilding it after you are depleted.