Austin -

AUSTIN WOODS AND WATERS CLUB
Officer installation and award presentations

Special Speaker: David McKelvey - A storyteller called "The Birdman"

Wed., Feb. 3 6:30 pm
County Line on the Hill (off Bee Cave Rd.)
$25/person. Reservations a MUST: 258-0555.

To say that the speaker for AWWC's evening officer installation dinner at County Line on the Hill is a rare entertainer with a knack for making his audiences laugh out loud is like saying Drew Brees throws a football. The description just doesn't tell the story.

David McKelvey, from Comfort, Texas, is a story teller, to be sure. He cleverly weaves lessons about his years of wildlife work in North and South America, up and down the Amazon, in Brazilian rain forests, in India, England and Africa and the two years he spent on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius into a narrative that is laced with humor and the personally emitted mouth calls of the animals he is describing. The sounds of wild animals - and other everyday sounds -- before a mixed audience during a narrative is often startling; always unexpected. And technically accurate. You almost think he is using a recorder on some of his sound effects. But he is the recorder.

We almost didn't get him. He was off banding eagles in Arizona and resurfaced in Texas on the deadline date for announcing the evening's speaker. To many, he is known as "The Birdman." Unquestionably, he knows birds. McKelvey has been the curator of birds at the internationally respected Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, the San Antonio Zoo, and curator of four different facilities in Ohio.

He trained two doves to fly down a laser at the Passion Play in Dollywood and land on Jesus' shoulder. He trained two longhorn calves to yoke up and pull a load. And he conditioned mountain lions to work off leash. His trained birds have appeared in several television commercials. Think what he might do with the U.S. Congress, if given the chance.

David McKelvey has been a guest of Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Captain Kangaroo, and five times on Those Amazing Animals. He just might even tell us about The Great Texas Hog Hunt.

His talks, though zoologically accurate, seem guided by Walt Disney's famous philosophy: "It's better to entertain 'em and hope they learned something than try to teach them and bore them to death."

I promise you won't be bored.