Evaluating call-count procedures for measuring local mourning dove populations

Seventy-nine mourning dove call-count runs were made on a 32-km route in Osage County, Missouri, May 1-August 31, 1971 and 1972. Circular study areas, each 61 ha, surrounding stop numbers 4 and 5, were delineated for intensive nest searches and population estimates. Tallies of cooing male doves along the entire call-count route were quite variable in repeated runs, fluctuating as much as 50 percent on consecutive days. There were no consistent relationships between numbers of cooing males tallied at stops 4 and 5 and the numbers of current nests or doves estimated to be present in the surrounding study areas. We doubt the suitability of call-count procedures to estimate precisely the densities of breeding pairs, nests or production of doves on small areas. Our findings do not dispute the usefulness of the national call-count survey as an index to relative densities of mourning doves during the breeding season over large portions of the United States, or as an index to annual population trends.