Country diary: There's a new tenant in my rickety old greenhouse | Phil Gates

Crook, County Durham: In among the dead leaves and stacks of clay flower pots is a wren, in the relative warm of its winter roostIt takes a hard shove to free the greenhouse door from the grip of overnight frost. It opens suddenly, with a clatter. Inside, it's quiet enough to hear a mouse's footfall, which was what I thought might be the source of the rustling, down among the stacked clay flower pots.Then a wren - rotund body, perky cocked tail - appears, hops along the bench and disappears into a pot of violas. It must have been roosting in here for a couple of weeks, judging by the pile of droppings. It reappears, we eye each other for a few moments, then, with a whirr of stubby wings, it flies out through the gap in a broken pane of glass, something I'd meant to repair last autumn but will now leave until spring. Continue reading...