ORIGINAL PAPER Site fidelity and home range variation during the breeding season of peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) in Yamal, Russia Vasiliy Sokolov • Nicolas Lecomte • Aleksandr Sokolov • Md. Lutfor Rahman • Andrew Dixon Received: 13 December 2013 / Revised: 18 July 2014 / Accepted: 19 July 2014 / Published online: 31 July 2014 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract Many different ecological factors affecting the size, use, and spatial configuration of home ranges have been investigated, yet the chronology of the breeding cycle has been relatively under studied. Here, we studied peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) to describe variation in home range within and between breeding seasons in the Yamal peninsula, a region of the Russian Arctic with a high breeding density of peregrines. We used satellite telemetry to investigate variation in home range at different stages of the breeding cycle during three breeding seasons (2009–2011). We fitted Argos satellite transmitters to 10 breeding peregrines (nine females and one male) and two male fledglings. All breeding females showed fidelity to the region of the southwestern Yamal peninsula, but they were not necessarily faithful to their specific breeding ranges with 33 % dispersing to new ranges up to 40 km away. The population of peregrines in our study area was relatively synchronous in their breeding chronology, with clutches ini- tiated in close synchrony in early June despite the birds arriving on their breeding ranges ca. 3 weeks earlier. The average home range size for breeding females was 98 km 2 (95 % Maximum Convex Polygon). Over the breeding sea- son, the home range area utilized by females increased in the late nestling period and again after the chicks fledged. Expansion of the home range coincided with changes in behavior associated with parental care, resulting in greater activity and more time spent away from the nest area when the female began hunting to provision nestlings and fledglings. Keywords Arctic tundra Á Behavioral response Á Breeding cycle Á Breeding dispersal Á Satellite tracking Introduction Understanding factors affecting animal movement is fun- damental for describing space use by wildlife but also for Vasiliy Sokolov and Nicolas Lecomte have contributed equally to this work. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00300-014-1548-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. V. Sokolov Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Division Russian Academy of Sciences, 202-8 Marta Street, 620144 Yekaterinburg, Russia e-mail: vsokolov@inbox.ru N. Lecomte Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromso ¯, Norway e-mail: nicolas.lecomte@uit.no; nicolas.lecomte@umoncton.ca N. Lecomte Canada Research Chair in Polar and Boreal Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Moncton, Moncton E1A 3E9, Canada A. Sokolov Ecological Research Station of Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Division Russian Academy of Sciences, 21 Zelenaya Gorka, 629400 Labytnangi, Yamalo-Nenetski District, Russia e-mail: sokhol@yandex.ru Md. L. Rahman Á A. Dixon (&) International Wildlife Consultants Ltd, PO Box 19, Carmarthen SA33 5YL, UK e-mail: falco@falcons.co.uk Md. L. Rahman e-mail: lutfor.rahman@falcons.co.uk 123 Polar Biol (2014) 37:1621–1631 DOI 10.1007/s00300-014-1548-0