WATCH: BBC presenter defies producer's pleas with bizarre bird imitation

Extra.ie​

08-07-2025

BBC presenter Maryam Moshiri defied her producer's pleas not to do a bizarre but funny imitation of a peacock on live television.
Maryam, who's one of the chief presenters on BBC News, was covering a story about a peacock that's been running rampant in the English village of Marlborough in Wiltshire, eating its way through vegetable patches and waking up neighbours with his early morning calls.
Covering the story on BBC News, the news package ended with the peacock, who's since been named Percy, cawing atop a chimney — before returning to the studio with Maryam, who said that her producers told her not to imitate the bird.
'I've been told specifically from my producer not to do an impression of a peacock,' Maryam said, before immediately saying 'I'm going to do it anyway.'
She when stuck her hands up and made, what we think, is a bird call, before immediately returning to newsreader mode and saying 'there we go.'
The clip was shared by TV critic Scott Bryan, with Maryam enjoying her latest clip to go viral – joking on Twitter (X) 'waiting for that call from BBC2, asking me to present my own birdwatching show…. Errrrr… still waiting…' BBC presenter Maryam Moshiri – Pic: BBC
This isn't the first time that Maryam has gone viral for moments that were intentional or otherwise; with her having to make an apology after flipping the middle finger at the camera back in 2023 while she thought she was off air.
The start of the BBC News program saw her raising her eyebrows and flashing the finger at who she thought were the producers behind the cameras, before going into newsreader mode and pulling the finger down.
Taking to Twitter at the time, she said: 'Hey everyone, yesterday just before the top of the hour I was joking around a bit with the team in the gallery.' Maryam previously made headlines for all the wrong reasons back in 2023, when she accidentally flashed the middle finger at the camera. Pic: Twitter
'I was pretending to count down as the director was counting me down from 10-0… including the fingers to show the number. So from 10 fingers held up to one.'
She explained that when it got to 1 she turned her finger as a joke, not realising it would be caught on camera.
'It was a private joke with the team and I'm so sorry it went out on air! It was not my intention for this to happen and I'm sorry if I offended or upset anyone,' she wrote.
Maryam explained that she wasn't 'flipping the bird' at viewers or 'even a person really.'
'It was a silly joke that was meant for a small number of my mates,' she concluded.