Bertie the Brown Birch Bolet - Diary entry No.7

I awoke this morning with some intrepidation because the temperatures dropped overnight and a frost was forecasted. As I paced my way along the grass lane approaching the birch forest there were patches of frost visible where the sun's warmth had not extended.

After a number of complicated inter company loans, which are currently being investigated by the financial regulator, this research has been advanced a modest sum for the purpose of placing state of the art, highly sensitive, digital equipment in the forest. This should enable me to record the maximum and minimum temperatures recorded over the last 24 hours.

Bertie the brown birch bolet

At Bertie's secret location there was no evidence of frost, and the state of the art equipment gave an air temperature of 4.1 degrees Celsius; it was approximately 8.40 a.m. and the daytime temperature should rise by the afternoon. The maximum and minimum temperatures recorded for the last 24 hours were 14.1 and 2.1 degrees Celsius. The barograph is stable at 1012 millibars and it would appear that the weather will only get colder as the high pressure strenghtens making its presence felt.

Bertie's stalk is not in good condition, and this fact along with the cooler temperatures, must be hampering growth. Bertie's cap now measures 47mm in diameter and he is approximately 62mm tall. Other similar medium size birch bolets are exhibiting signs of being sensitive to the frost and their caps are starting to become soft and soggy. Corinne has been speculating that Bertie is a product of the good times and as such has not got what it takes to make it through the current challenging times. Let us hope that she is not correct in this view and that he does not fade away at the first sign of a chill.

Not far away Big Ben the brown birch bolet is developing well. His cap measures 33mm in diameter and he is already 47mm high. He is clearly a different variety of birch bolet as he has a thick fleshy stalk and small deep dark brown cap covering it.

Big Ben the brown birch bolet