Celebrity farmer Jimmy Doherty, presenting the show, descended on Mr Spratt's Homestead Farm for a Darwinian experiment about how the peacock got its elaborate feathers as the BBC marked 200 years since the naturalist's birth.

For Mr Spratt, the filming marked just one brush with fame in a unique career that has seen him appear on television, be the subject of national newspaper features, as well as contribute to top Hollywood films.

But these brushes with celebrity are a mere sideline and after meeting Mr Spratt, it is clear his love for the birds and the various breeds is what has kept him working with peafowl for more than 40 years.

"My father bought some eggs and hatched them and that was it," he said.

"The colours of the eggs always fascinated me, and they still do.

"It was a childhood hobby for the first ten or 15 years but then by the mid-1980s, it started to overtake my farm work."

Between 2,000 and 2,500 peafowl are bred on the farm every year and are sold all over the world, from a big customer in France, to Holland, Nigeria and the Middle East for people who want them for ornamental purposes on their estates.

The market in the UK has almost completely collapsed, solely down the rise of urban foxes, making any peafowl roaming in this country "fox fodder" according to Mr Spratt.

"I've never had any problem selling them," said Mr Spratt.

"We can't get enough of them – we breed thousands and it's not enough."

"There's no big breeders in Europe apart from myself.

"We have had an easy run because we've had no competition."

He has also been a member of the World Pheasant Association since 1971 and has been working to introduce the Javan Green peafowl back into their native habitats.

They were declared extinct in Malaysia in 1963, but with Mr Spratt's help, a re-introduction programme has seen the first peafowl begin breeding in the wild.

It was his pure white peacocks which brought Mr Spratt his brush with Hollywood, when the feathers were used in Elizabeth: The Golden Age for the headdress of actress and star Cate Blanchett, who played Queen Elizabeth I.

His peacocks were used in various television shows, including in PD James' Devices and Desires in the 1990s and he has been featured on Anglia News.

Customers also include Conservative politician Michael Heseltine and record producer Pete Waterman.

It was a feature in The Telegraph newspaper gave Mr Spratt some serious exposure.

"I remember The Telegraph, after that we had so many letters and people turning up on the farm saying: 'are you the person with the peafowl?'" he said.