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We all know Simon King and his team love a challenge. Travelling around the country, unravelling some of autumn's great wildlife mysteries from Sussex to Anglesey and from Birmingham to the Dorset coast, Autumnwatch 2008 is likely to be their greatest challenge yet!

Fallow deer rut

Simon will be at Petworth House in West Sussex watching one of the season's most iconic and beautiful events, the fallow deer lek. Unlike with those old Autumnwatch favourites red deer where brute strength is all, the fallow deer lek is all about the male making the best impression on the females with a ritualised performance.

But what is it that really makes the female tick and what are the rules of the game? Scientists remain baffled by some of the rut's finer nuances. So can Simon and his high tech team bring us closer to the truth?

Urban Birmingham

One the face of it, an urban jungle in Birmingham isn't an obvious place to look for some of Britain's most elusive mammals. But word has it there are muntjac deer and otters to be found there! So how did these wild animals end up there? Another mystery for Simon to solve...

He'll also be showing all you city dwellers out there just how much wildlife lives right under your noses. It's just a matter of knowing where to look... or listen.

Anglesey

Week two of Autumnwatch and it's all change for Simon and the team. In Anglesey in North Wales they meet the world's largest and most majestic member of the crow family – the legendary raven.

Here on the island is Britain's greatest gathering of these charismatic creatures. As many as 400 of the usually quite solitary birds travel here to roost from far and wide. But why? Simon discovers that there are still many unsolved mysteries in the lives of these iconic birds.

Recent science suggests that we have much to learn about their considerable intelligence, their communication methods and their desire to play. Simon hopes to show us they have very complex social lives.

Dorset coast

For his final challenge Simon heads to the Dorset coast, just down the road from Brownsea Island, diving in search of huge conger eels. Some of them three metres long and weighing 50kg, these monsters are the top predators in these rich coastal waters.

Simon hopes for a face-to-face encounter and to explore what makes these waters so rich. He'll also be revealing the mysterious migrations and sex lives of eels. Sometimes fact can be stranger than fiction.

Video: researcher Jody Bourton goes behind the scenes on Simon's conger eel dive.