Migration dates, metrics of thermal use, flapping flight classifications, route straightness indices, and soaring-gliding efficiencies obtained from data stored on Movebank.org and used in the analyses of Bronnvik & Flack, 2025, Current Biology. Also includes a text file describing the contents of the data files. Individual animals make decisions to balance their costs and benefits. This balance can be affected by experiences gained with age but also by breeding pressure. Bronnvik and Flack show that age reduces soaring performance in white storks. This demonstrates one way that age can rebalance a trade-off by changing the costs and payoffs to an individual.