PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Chuck Otte will speak Thursday on the ruby-throated hummingbird

Chuck Otte has birds in his blood, not to mention his brain.

“I’ve been a birdwatcher since I was 4,” said Otte, Junction City, in a telephone interview. “My mother and grandmother were birdwatchers, so I was genetically predisposed and didn’t have a chance.”

Otte, Geary County Extension Agent for 31 years, will speak on some of his favorite species, the ruby-throated hummingbird, during a meeting of the Sperry-Galligar Audubon  at 7 p.m. Thursday in room 102, Yates Hall, Pittsburg State University.

“I never actually saw a hummingbird until I was a teenager,” Otte said. “I remember seeing some when I was 14 or 15 and visited my aunt and uncle in Boulder, Colo.”

He doesn’t recall which species those where, but Otte vividly remembers the first ruby-throated hummingbird he ever say. This is the only hummingbird found in this area, but he didn’t see it  here.

“I was 20, and I was in Washington, D.C., that summer,”  Otte said. “I remember driving my car down a street in Washington chasing a ruby-throated hummingbird. I don’t know how I didn’t have an accident.”

He said that people seem to be fascinated by hummingbirds not only because of their beauty but because of the things they can do that no other group of birds in  the world  can do.

That includes hovering in mid-air and flying backwards, They also, despite their tiny size, have attitude. Anyone doubting that can watch them fighting each other for nectar at a bird feeder,

“They will taunt us because they know we can get away,” Otte said. “Ruby-throated hummingbirds weigh around three grams, which is the same weight as a couple of paper clips. One researcher told me that if hummingbirds were as big as crows, it wouldn’t be safe for people to go into the woods.”

Of course, he added, birds in general tend to be temperamental, possibly inherited from their ancient dinosaur relatives such as the velociraptor.

“Joseph Collins, who was a great herpetologist, used to say that birds are just reptiles that have gone bad,” Otte said.

He will be discussing the needs of hummingbirds and plants that are especially attractive to them.

When I was growing up on our family farm in York County, Neb., nobody thought about putting up feeders or planting  certain things to attract hummingbirds to their yards,” Otte said.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy (crop production) in 1979, and a master of science in agronomy (plant breeding and genetics) in 1981, both from the University of Nebraska. He has been employed by the Geary County Extension Office in February of 1982. Otte served as president of the National Association of County Agricultural Agents in 2007. He also served nine years on the Junction City/Geary County Metropolitam Planning Commission, and chaired the committee four of those years.

Otte recently served as co-chairman of the Ft. Riley Restoration Advisory Board, a citizen input/steering committee dedicated to assisting in the reclamation of environmentally damaged area of Ft. Riley Army Post. He was the first president and helped in the founding of the Friends  of Milford State Park and Milford Nature Center Group.

He is a board member and past president of the Kansas Orthinological Society, and was newsletter editor of the organization’s quarterly publication “The Horned Lark” from 1992 to 2004, He is a past chairman of the Kansas Non-game Wildlife Advisory Council and  serves in an advisory capacity to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Otte was one of the co-authors of the book “Birds of  Kansas,” published in 2011, and, with Bob Gress, co-authored the 2012 publication “A Pocket Guide to Common Kansas Backyard Birds.”

His presentation on “The Jewels of the Garden” will be open free to the entire community, and Otte hopes for a good turnout.

“I really enjoy talking about birds,” he  said. “Birds bring out a real passion in people.”