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Many kinds of agricultural crops can be damaged by bird species. Visual devices as eye spotted balloons and flashing tapes have became quite popular in the last few years (Conover, 2002; Gorreri & Moscardini, 1997). Most of them are effective only for short periods and in small areas, since habituation generally occurs after a few days, due to the immobility of this kind of systems. A promising visual tool is Alsopp Helikite®. It is a 0.9-m diameter heliumfilled balloon with a kite and stabilizer attached that allows flights in high winds. (Santilli et alii, 2004; Seaman et alii, 2002). For these reasons our purpose was to conduct field evaluations of the Helikite efficacy in areas with sprouting corn and ripening sunflowers. Our null hypothesis was that damages would not decrease in response to the device.

The aim of the study was to know the habitat preferences and home range of resident and relocated brown hares during the no hunting period. The trial was carried out in a protected area (PA) and in a free hunting territory (FHT), both located in Florence province. During captures 21 hares were equipped with a necklace radio tag: 7 hares, resident group, were released in the same area of capture and 14 hares, relocated group, were relocated in six different locations within the FHT. The effect of place of release was analyzed by ANOVA and/or non parametric methods. Results showed that the home ranges of the resident group were characterised by a greater presence of fallow land and shrub land than relocated group (P< 0.05). Home range sizes and Max distances from the releasing sites differed between the two groups. Resident hares preferred landscape characterized by a higher density of patches than the relocated hares (152 vs. 70 n/100ha, 43 vs. 12 n/100ha, 4703 vs. 8142 sq.m respectively; P