Whistles on the Heath — Daily puzzle for 2026-10-11

Very Hard — logic-grid deduction puzzle

Four volunteers spent an October dusk on a Dorset heath timing the whistles of sika stags, and each noted one other creature.

On a cold October evening in 1996, the warden of a Dorset heath sent four volunteers out at dusk. It was the rutting season, and every evening the sika stags called across the heath with a high, eerie whistle. The bracken had turned brown, mist was rising in the hollows, and everyone wore woolly hats and gloves and carried a flask of tea. Each volunteer sat at a different listening spot with a stopwatch. They timed how many minutes of whistling they heard before full dark. The warden also gave each of them two record cards. The yellow card was for the badger and the woodcock, and the green card was for the roe deer and the barn owl. Each volunteer saw just one of those four creatures, and no two saw the same one. Back at the car park, their notes had got muddled, and the warden had to piece the evening together from what everyone remembered.

Clues

1. The volunteer who heard 26 minutes of whistling saw a yellow-card creature, either the badger or the woodcock.
2. Only one of these three things was true: Priya saw the barn owl; the volunteer at the pines saw the woodcock; the volunteer who heard 38 minutes saw the roe deer.
3. The volunteer at the gate did not hear 24 minutes of whistling.
4. Of the badger and the roe deer, one was seen by Owen and the other by whoever sat at the pond.
5. At the barrow, the creature seen went on the yellow card: it was the badger or the woodcock.
6. The badger was seen by someone who heard fewer minutes of whistling than whoever saw the woodcock.
7. Whoever sat at the pond saw the roe deer.
8. At least one of these was true: Hannah was not at the pines, or Tom heard 26 minutes of whistling.
9. If the roe deer was seen by the volunteer who heard 24 minutes, then that volunteer was Priya.
10. Only one of these three things was true: Owen saw the badger; Tom heard 12 minutes; the badger was seen by the volunteer who heard 24 minutes.
11. The badger was not the creature seen by the volunteer at the gate.
12. Tom heard more minutes of whistling than the volunteer at the gate.

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