Successful migration for passerine birds depends largely on the quality of stopover habitats, but we still lack complete knowledge of how migrants search for habitats en route, and how they behave when landing at poor quality stopover sites. We compared the distance of exploratory movements and stopover durations of the Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus, a reedbed habitat specialist, released at suitable (reedbed) and unsuitable (sanddune) stopover sites . Birds tape-lured during nocturnal migration to a sanddunes were captured, radio-tagged, released and tracked at two sites of contrasting habitat quality. Lean birds were found to move further in the dunes (max 300 m) than in reeds (max 200 m), whereas ‘fat’ individuals at both sites remained stationary. Birds spent just 1 day in the dunes and up to 13 days in the reeds. Our results suggest that some nocturnal migrants with restricted diurnal exploratory movements depend on stopover site selection when ceasing nocturnal flight.