It all started with a YouTube video and a child who wanted to be Gerald Durrell. One moment we were saying “maybe” to hatching pet quail eggs, and the next we were sneaking an incubator into the loft.

I confess, after several days of this, my interest in the quails waned. But then, the morning after Bonfire Night, sixteen days after the eggs were first placed in the incubator, one of the boys ...