The day had arrived, the Countryfile film crew were arriving at 8.30 am. The weather forecast was rainy showers. Not great for filming peacocks for Countryfile as peacocks hate the rain and run under cover at the first drop. If it rained there would be nothing to film! I had explained this to the director, so she was well aware of the situation. There were six members of the team including John Craven. With rain potentially imminent the camera man got to work immediately filming the peacocks which were displaying. The sound engineer recorded the amazing call of the male peacock. Also getting general sounds of the countryside including airplanes flying overhead. We had to stop filming a couple of times because of the airiness schedules.

We soon relaxed

The Countryfile team were great, putting me at ease and helping me to relax. There was no script for me, all I had to do was answer John’s questions as naturally as possible. We started filming the two of us walking chatting, Then they filmed John and I meeting and feeding the peafowl. Filming peacocks for Countryfile is not as simple as it looks though. As soon as the camera man went into a pen the peacock would lower its tail.Next we went to look for eggs. The peacocks are laying lots of eggs a day at the moment, but we only had to collect a few for the film. I then processed the eggs by cleaning them and finally we put the peacock eggs into the incubator. The whole process to film a few minutes of television took half a day!

Both my husband and I really enjoyed the whole filming experience. Although my husband chose not to appear on camera, being the less extrovert of the two of us!

Finally we filmed John Craven walking through the woods completing his introduction to the whole peacock film.

The Countryfile crew were so friendly and Jo the Director was great at getting the shots she wanted for the film. I was able to watch on her monitor as the camera man was filming which was exciting!

So now we wait, production of each episode only takes two weeks so the episode will be shown on Countryfile on the 19^th of May and then available on BBC Iplayer after that for a period of time.

At Peacocks UK we are so excited to showcase the rare peafowl breeds I introduced to the UK in 2011 for the first time on British Television.