Tonight, I'm thinking about sticks. Not as in hockey or pool, but as in what tree limbs and twigs turn into when they are no longer attached to the trunk of the tree. I'm an amateur about this as far as schoolbook education goes, but I have been a rather passionate visitor to small suburban and rural woodsy areas across the years.

In the city, it's hard to learn about these things because sticks are quickly picked up and taken away after dropping from the tree. Most sticks I've found when living in cities are pretty smooth and hard, and stay intact when you pick them up. They're clean, easy to gather and dispose of in the yard debris pickup programs.

In the country, and in wildlife parks, sticks are very different. They are left on the ground for much longer periods. Depending on how long the stick has been off the tree, and what the weather has been like, sticks soften and grow crumbly. There might be ants or other insects marching through the tunnels they create in the decaying fibers of the wood. Insect eggs may be tucked beneath segments of bark. Lichens and fungi (such as mushrooms) of many shapes and colors may be found growing on the rotting wood. Birds and lizards may feast on what is thriving on the sticks. Critters find shelter beneath and within them. At later stages, the sticks crumble when you lift them from the ground. They gradually return to the stuff of the earth, bringing nutrients to the soil, and sustaining life therein.

I watched a jay a couple of weeks ago in a city neighborhood, trying over and over to snap a small living twig off a tree. It seemed a struggle and I wondered what was going on. But it is nest building time, and there were no old dry dead twigs on that tree that would have been easy to snap. Maybe the jay was trying to gather sticks that were still green as building material for a nest to cradle his or her young.