Theoretical predictions suggest that fuel deposition rate (FDR) is an important attribute of migrating birds during stopover, specifically predicting that higher FDR induces longer stopover and higher departure fuel load (DFL). We explored bird stopover behavior, fuel deposition and departure timing in fall migrating Red-backed shrikes (Lanius collurio) that stopped-over in the Hula Valley of Northern Israel from where they undertake a long journey of about 2,000 km across the Sahara Desert. During the falls of 2017 and 2018 we made daily censuses, trapped birds in the field and tracked their movement by the ATLAS time-difference-of-arrival radio-telemetry system. Using field deployed scales, we remotely measured bird body mass (n = 15 individuals) on a daily basis. Surprisingly, we found that the staging birds were composed of two groups of birds that predominantly differed in the time period before starting to continuously increase their body mass before departing (group 1: range 2-3 days, n = 6, hereafter “short”; and group 2: range 9-13 days, n = 9, hereafter “long”), as well as their total stopover duration. Notably, key stopover properties differed between the two groups. For example the relationship between FDR and stopover duration was positive in the “short” group and negative in the “long” group, and the relationship between FDR and DFL were nearly constant in the “short” group and positive in the “long” group. These findings suggest that prolonged periods without continuous fueling are common when staging near edges of wide ecological barriers, with critical consequences for stopover strategy.