MESSING about on the river proved almost too tempting for BBC TV's Autumnwatch presenter, Simon King, when he took to the Wye in a 'Mad River' canoe and headed for the rapids.

"We had to shout to him to come back," said Graham Symonds of Monmouth Canoe and Activity Centre, who supplied the canoes for filming. "He just didn't want to get out. He'd obviously found something new, out of the ordinary and it really got to him."

Filming for the BBC's Autumnwatch sequences – to be shown this Friday – set off from The Biblins campsite near Symonds Yat and headed downstream past the dramatic Seven Sisters rocks.

"We had a spot of rain, but then the sun came out and the water was crystal, glassy clear and smooth," says Graham. "The autumn leaves and the trees were simply fantastic. We saw three or four kingfishers, blue tits, great tits, wrens and a sparrowhawk shot over our heads chasing a blackbird which was screaming its head off – lucky to make it. The hawk was going at about 80mph. Oh, and there were fallow deer grunting away about 200 yards away."

After canoeing, the Autumnwatch team scaled a specially rigged beech tree and went off in search of badgers and boar on the Forest side of the valley. All the sequences are being edited and live excerpts being filmed from the Forest Enterprise lodge at the Biblins.