Winter arrives in Southend.

November 2 2006. Media reports from a lightship in the southern North Sea at 4 Hrs. G.M.T. indicate that the drop in the temperature of my experimental seawater tank was able to cause sinkings due to a rise in barometric pressure after variable pressure in a gale. On the morning of October 31 the temperature was still 58½°F (14.7°C) and the pressure of 100.8 KPa was associated with a SW by S wind of force 7. Next morning the temperature had dropped to 52½°F (11.4°C), the pressure was 102.0 KPa and the cold wind was force 6 from the northwest. This morning the wind had moderated here but was reported offshore as force 5 from the N.N.W. at a pressure of 103.1 KPa. The tank water temperature had declined further to 48°F (8.9°C) causing the 8th of a set of 10 dry fallen Pinus pineaster Aiton cones to sink apex-up in the night, after about 113.0 days (length 104 mm, diameter 37 mm). Most of the sinkings due to the sudden arrival of winter took place on November 1st. During the first cold night a brown decayed 66 mm diameter apple sank in freshwater after about 21.5 days and was moved to seawater to see how much longer it would float in denser water with salt ions presumably diffusing into largely flooded, brown decayed flesh. The cork present in a bucket of seawater sank after about 2056.7 days, with the surface originally punctured by the corkscrew predictably at the base. The angle of tilt of this cylinder (46 mm by 23 mm) was 45 degrees. At 15 Hrs. the ash log in the same recently illustrated apple bucket sank horizontally after 31.0 days. It had more elongated dimensions (200 mm by 60 mm). At around 17 Hrs. a probable curlew secondary wing feather sank entirely intact and vertical after 58.2 days (length 119 mm by 18 mm vane width and 2.6 mm maximum calamus diameter). Of these only the cork qualifies as a long-term floatation defining seasonal singularities in sinkings reviewed from 37 cases in The Drifting Seed vol. 12 (no.1), p9-10. Since that report a charcoal sank on July 16 after 1548 days at 17.8°C and 102.6 KPa and now the cork as noted above. Usually the annual cooling event is from November 14 to 19, but there was one previous sinking at this time of year in my data set. This was a pumice stone sunk by 7 Hrs. G.M.T. on November 2 2001 at a higher temperature (13.9°C) and pressure (104.0 KPa).

These events took place during a period of low actual and predicted high tides at Westcliff to Chalkwell beaches. The morning strandline of October 31 was predicted to be 1.8 m above mean sea level at 5.27 Hrs. and was briefly studied at Westcliff around 13 Hrs. The strandline had by then been modified by sand blowing along it from the west but was still well defined by strings of Fucus, Zostera and reed tops bound into spiral bunches. Whiteweed (Serturlia) was present from the lower intertidal zone exposed to the gales. Paired Mytilus and Cerastoderma shells had stranded. A few green Halimone leaves were also observed. They would have been able to remain floating since the tides reached their higher level on the intertidal zone around October 25.

Many Halimone leaves were deposited with Fucus, twigs, gull feather and seawater on the Westcliff promenade by the O.44 Hr. G.M.T. tide of October 23. The predicted height of this tide was 2.7 m above mean sea-level but the debris was much higher than that and the waves probably removed the Halimone leaves from insitu plants at that time. It also rained later that day and not much since then, so that the buoyant yellow-red apple stranded with a few leaves on October 31 had probably also been in the sea for a week. This stranded apple was damaged on one side, probably by falling from the tree rather than by stranding on weed and sand. It was collected and refloated in seawater on the beach and has remained floating in the tanks, stalk-up since then.

The visit to Chalkwell beach after the similarly low morning tide of November 1st showed that a live Brent Goose had returned from Siberia and was swimming in a tide that was only slowly retreating from a poorly defined strandline. Presumably the north wind had prevented Fucus and other buoyant materials from stranding on the south-facing beach. Even the algal concentrations on the west side of breakwaters may have arrived earlier with the westerly gales and similarly low high tides. However, the new patches of gravel near the top of the wet part of the beach sand were associated with a few gull and oyster catcher feathers, which had stranded recently.

On land the birds now seem to go about in one flock; including one Wren, Blue Tits, a pair of Blackbirds, House Sparrows and even an aggressive Robin. Perhaps the gardens are normally now so full of parking lots and decking that the birds need to protect each other from cats and hawks by moving together from one exposed bird table to the next? Before the cold wind, and as recently as October 27th (and again on Nov 9th) there were more solitary visits from the attractive large Red Admiral Butterfly Vanessa atalanta. At 9 Hrs. G.M.T. on October 25 a bold large fox nearly walked into me in the urban setting of Lansdowne avenue Chalkwell, near the busy A13 road. It decided it would retreat behind a parked car before going on over the street, which was not displaying any garbage, bags that day. As far as the leaf fall is concerned, one ash tree has now (November 2) lost all of them while the one next to it resembles the local Hawthorne and oak in still having an insitu and largely green leaf displays. Frogs still sing in the day and hedgehogs still scream in the night last week.