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The Fullness of Time: Marking the Day by Birdsong, Blooms, Shadows, and Stars
A joyful exploration of nature’s daily rhythms and a call to notice the wonders of the natural world, wherever you are.
Most of us live fully digitized lives, staring at screens and tracking our data. We think of time as the relentless march of abstract, identical hours that control the shape of our days. But what might we gain from exploring the forgotten art of sensing the natural patterns of the world around us?
Cathy Haynes argues that by paying more attention to the living rhythms of plants, animals, and light, we stand to reap inner riches that can bring us fascination, delight, and comfort in a time of tumult. To discover a new sense of time, she draws on the knowledge of astronomers, botanists, ornithologists and experts on sundial-making, shepherding, and traditional work songs.
In an earlier world, we used to mark daily cycles by shadows shrinking or the midday glow over a mountaintop. We called a phase of darkness “cockcrow” and named lively flowers for when they open and close. When working, we may have synchronized a task by singing. We’d notice the quality of the light changing at dusk and mark the passing of night by the motion of the stars.
The Fullness of Time is an invitation to tune into the subtle changes happening around us throughout the day, even in the concrete-and-glass heart of the twenty-first-century city. Charming, gentle and wise, it offers a chance to realign ourselves with the rhythms of the natural world and a reminder to pay attention to the wonders before us if only we look around.
Most of us live fully digitized lives, staring at screens and tracking our data. We think of time as the relentless march of abstract, identical hours that control the shape of our days. But what might we gain from exploring the forgotten art of sensing the natural patterns of the world around us?
Cathy Haynes argues that by paying more attention to the living rhythms of plants, animals, and light, we stand to reap inner riches that can bring us fascination, delight, and comfort in a time of tumult. To discover a new sense of time, she draws on the knowledge of astronomers, botanists, ornithologists and experts on sundial-making, shepherding, and traditional work songs.
In an earlier world, we used to mark daily cycles by shadows shrinking or the midday glow over a mountaintop. We called a phase of darkness “cockcrow” and named lively flowers for when they open and close. When working, we may have synchronized a task by singing. We’d notice the quality of the light changing at dusk and mark the passing of night by the motion of the stars.
The Fullness of Time is an invitation to tune into the subtle changes happening around us throughout the day, even in the concrete-and-glass heart of the twenty-first-century city. Charming, gentle and wise, it offers a chance to realign ourselves with the rhythms of the natural world and a reminder to pay attention to the wonders before us if only we look around.
- GenresNonfictionNature
288 pages, Hardcover
Published April 21, 2026
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December 31, 2025
Ask “What time is it?” today and the reply might come from a clock, a watch, a coffeemaker, a microwave, and a stove or an of the myriad time-keeping devices of the 21st century. In “The Fullness of Time,” British writer Cathy Haynes explores just how people marked time in less technology-focused eras. Prior to mass transportation and large scale industrial employment, the need for accuracy was less important. But who doesn’t wonder when it’s time to head home for dinner, whether working in a modern highrise or overseeing a herd of sheep due back home for the night?
Haynes discusses the older, more earth-centric methods of timekeeping that most of us missed by centuries. Our own awareness of time is so far removed from these methods that there is something almost alchemical about the processes. Yet they worked well enough for humans to rely on them through the centuries prior to widespread use of timepieces. We may still notice some almost unconsciously. Spend some time regularly enjoying a morning cup of coffee on your back porch, and you’re liable to pick up on when the bird chorus first begins and start timing your coffee to coordinate with its first trills. Do it often enough and you, like Haynes, may learn to note the exact point at which a particular type of bird begins its song. While such timelines are dependent on factors like seasons of the year, geographical location, variety of species, and environmental changes, it’s still possible to detect some broad patterns that suggest the time of day.
Farmers who are intimately familiar with their land and their stock are among the contemporary experts Haynes interviewed. There’s a regularity to the practice that encourages observation of the natural world in which they work. Tasks like twice a day milking of cows encourage awareness on the farmer’s part of when shadows grow longer and bees head to their hives. Haynes documents such subtle changes as the shape of animal’s eyes, which adjust much more obviously than our own to changing light. Cats, goats, and sheep all possess eyes that register those changes.
Flowers too respond to light in particular ways, opening or closing in response to sunlight. Morning glories, 4 o’clocks, dandelions all offer hints as to the hour, as do sunflowers and marigolds, their habit of following the light compared by early observers to the Christian’s need to follow the light of God. Just as birds do not appear all at once in the morning, flowers too vary in their habits, leading ambitious researchers of the past to attempt to create flower clocks that tell time by specific reactions on the part of a collection of plants.
Humans devised their own tricks of measuring time in the natural world, Haynes reports, such as work songs aimed at establishing a rhythm of work as well as a way to approximate the time a task took. Haynes points out that during the Covid pandemic, it was common for handwashing time to be measured by two choruses of “Happy Birthday.” People also developed scratch dials and stick dials, early forerunners to the sun dial that, though far less precise, provided enough information to suffice in a pre-industrial economy. Photographs by Haynes and her partner Rosie help the reader understand what such devices looked like and where they might still be found today in ancient churches or even untended woods.
Tracking the path of sunlight over a familiar landscape provides another source of chronological data for those attuned to the earth. Finding the “daymarks” or landmarks by which locals trace time is familiar with those living in mountain hollers where the sun’s path is late in the day and relatively brief.
Haynes’s enthusiasm for the subject, her willingness to travel far and wide, asking questions of professionals and everyday observers of earthly patterns will engage readers. It will also encourage them to observe more closely their own landscapes as they learn how people in the past navigated time. “The Fullness of Time” would make a great read for those who enjoy deep dives into nature and how the world works. Its publication date is April 21, 2026, and I do plan to order the book for the library.
Haynes discusses the older, more earth-centric methods of timekeeping that most of us missed by centuries. Our own awareness of time is so far removed from these methods that there is something almost alchemical about the processes. Yet they worked well enough for humans to rely on them through the centuries prior to widespread use of timepieces. We may still notice some almost unconsciously. Spend some time regularly enjoying a morning cup of coffee on your back porch, and you’re liable to pick up on when the bird chorus first begins and start timing your coffee to coordinate with its first trills. Do it often enough and you, like Haynes, may learn to note the exact point at which a particular type of bird begins its song. While such timelines are dependent on factors like seasons of the year, geographical location, variety of species, and environmental changes, it’s still possible to detect some broad patterns that suggest the time of day.
Farmers who are intimately familiar with their land and their stock are among the contemporary experts Haynes interviewed. There’s a regularity to the practice that encourages observation of the natural world in which they work. Tasks like twice a day milking of cows encourage awareness on the farmer’s part of when shadows grow longer and bees head to their hives. Haynes documents such subtle changes as the shape of animal’s eyes, which adjust much more obviously than our own to changing light. Cats, goats, and sheep all possess eyes that register those changes.
Flowers too respond to light in particular ways, opening or closing in response to sunlight. Morning glories, 4 o’clocks, dandelions all offer hints as to the hour, as do sunflowers and marigolds, their habit of following the light compared by early observers to the Christian’s need to follow the light of God. Just as birds do not appear all at once in the morning, flowers too vary in their habits, leading ambitious researchers of the past to attempt to create flower clocks that tell time by specific reactions on the part of a collection of plants.
Humans devised their own tricks of measuring time in the natural world, Haynes reports, such as work songs aimed at establishing a rhythm of work as well as a way to approximate the time a task took. Haynes points out that during the Covid pandemic, it was common for handwashing time to be measured by two choruses of “Happy Birthday.” People also developed scratch dials and stick dials, early forerunners to the sun dial that, though far less precise, provided enough information to suffice in a pre-industrial economy. Photographs by Haynes and her partner Rosie help the reader understand what such devices looked like and where they might still be found today in ancient churches or even untended woods.
Tracking the path of sunlight over a familiar landscape provides another source of chronological data for those attuned to the earth. Finding the “daymarks” or landmarks by which locals trace time is familiar with those living in mountain hollers where the sun’s path is late in the day and relatively brief.
Haynes’s enthusiasm for the subject, her willingness to travel far and wide, asking questions of professionals and everyday observers of earthly patterns will engage readers. It will also encourage them to observe more closely their own landscapes as they learn how people in the past navigated time. “The Fullness of Time” would make a great read for those who enjoy deep dives into nature and how the world works. Its publication date is April 21, 2026, and I do plan to order the book for the library.
April 29, 2026
QUOTES FROM THE BOOK
From the Introduction
“We used to tell time by shadows shrinking or the midday glow over a mountaintop. We called a phase of darkness ‘cockcrow’ and named lively flowers for when they open and close. When working, we may have synchronised a task by singing. We’d notice the quality of the light changing at dusk, and we might mark time at night by the motion of the stars. Now we depend heavily on complex machines and think of the hours as identical abstract units. In the urbanised West today, so much of our world would not function without super-precise clocks. But what riches might we gain from exploring the forgotten art of sensing time by events in the world around us? … even in the tarmac-and-glass heart of the twenty-first-century city.”
From Ch. 1 Dawn Song and Bat Flit: Heeding the habits of fellow creatures
“The dark blue sky soon becomes luminous enough to see the ducks flying silently overhead. The pine, ash and oak, which moments ago were blunt, flat shapes, are tangling up with ivy. The pale clay track is unveiling its treacherous puddles. Milky drifts of mist are appearing in the valley like the aftermath of magic. And while the brightening world starts to resume familiar form, the whistling hedgerows thicken with the songs of blue tits, goldfinches, chaffinches and dunnocks. An Old English word for daybreak is dæg-wōma, literally ‘day-noise’. [Here on the farm] the dæg-wōma has gained singer after singer until – about twenty minutes before sunrise – it’s in gloriously full voice.”
From Ch. 2 Day’s-Eyes and Turnsoles: Following the hours of flowers
“It seems to me that once you start noticing the population of these special kinds of plant in your area – when you’re on winking terms with your local daisies [“day’s eyes”], say, and sensitive to the habits of the creeping wood sorrel in a street gutter – the world starts appearing with a new filter. A flowerbed is not only a source of sensory pleasure but a site of intrigue. Even a straggly clump of opportunists in a pavement crack is no longer something to ignore. Once you’re alive to the habits of marigolds and all the rest, they leap out from the crowd, and soon you’re seeing ‘time’ wherever there are flowers and leaves.”
From Ch. 3 Waulking Songs and Furlong-Ways: Beating time by the human voice and body
“In the West now, not many of us associate creating music with work. But [in the Outer Hebrides] song and poetry were tightly woven into everyday life … The songs were tailored to the rhythm and speed of the work in hand…”
From Ch. 4 Scratch Dials and Stick Dials: Dividing the day by the flow of shadows
“Many modern sundials are sophisticated instruments designed to find with precision the same ‘equal’ hours that clocks keep. ... But my particular enthusiasm is for the marvellously variable rough-and-ready methods past generations had of telling time by shadows: by arranging sticks in the turf, observing the shadow of their own body, or etching wobbly lines into walls.”
From Ch. 5 Daymarks: Tracing time by the light over the landscape
“All around Iceland there are places named for the time of day, like Early-morning Cairn, Morning Valley, Midday Hill, Mid-afternoon Mountain, Evening Ruin, Night-time Waterfall. These special kinds of landmark are known as daymarks and were once common across Norse cultures. But they survived for much longer in Iceland and have left exceptionally vivid traces.”
From Ch. 6 The Gloaming and the Dimpse: Sensing time by the colours and qualities of twilight
‘Gloaming is likely to have come from an old Germanic root, glô-, which also gave us the word ‘glow’. It may have referred to the gleaming of sunset (or sunrise) before coming to mean the dim and shady twilight. And yet this audible ‘glow’ in gloaming still feels apt. Because at day’s end, of course, the world doesn’t just fade to black as if a celestial dimmer switch is being turned down. In the prelude to the night, as the light starts to drop, the sky burns with its most intense colours of the day.”
From Ch. 7 Star Clocks: Marking time by the motion of the night sky
“To gesture to the sky – to orient yourself in time and space by mapping the movement of the stars against the local skyline with your own lively digits – feels remarkably different from casting a glance at a machine. It’s among those other ways of gauging time by the body and the senses – by the shrinking of a shadow, the glow over a daymark, the changing colours of the sky and air – that binds us to our present world.”
From the Introduction
“We used to tell time by shadows shrinking or the midday glow over a mountaintop. We called a phase of darkness ‘cockcrow’ and named lively flowers for when they open and close. When working, we may have synchronised a task by singing. We’d notice the quality of the light changing at dusk, and we might mark time at night by the motion of the stars. Now we depend heavily on complex machines and think of the hours as identical abstract units. In the urbanised West today, so much of our world would not function without super-precise clocks. But what riches might we gain from exploring the forgotten art of sensing time by events in the world around us? … even in the tarmac-and-glass heart of the twenty-first-century city.”
From Ch. 1 Dawn Song and Bat Flit: Heeding the habits of fellow creatures
“The dark blue sky soon becomes luminous enough to see the ducks flying silently overhead. The pine, ash and oak, which moments ago were blunt, flat shapes, are tangling up with ivy. The pale clay track is unveiling its treacherous puddles. Milky drifts of mist are appearing in the valley like the aftermath of magic. And while the brightening world starts to resume familiar form, the whistling hedgerows thicken with the songs of blue tits, goldfinches, chaffinches and dunnocks. An Old English word for daybreak is dæg-wōma, literally ‘day-noise’. [Here on the farm] the dæg-wōma has gained singer after singer until – about twenty minutes before sunrise – it’s in gloriously full voice.”
From Ch. 2 Day’s-Eyes and Turnsoles: Following the hours of flowers
“It seems to me that once you start noticing the population of these special kinds of plant in your area – when you’re on winking terms with your local daisies [“day’s eyes”], say, and sensitive to the habits of the creeping wood sorrel in a street gutter – the world starts appearing with a new filter. A flowerbed is not only a source of sensory pleasure but a site of intrigue. Even a straggly clump of opportunists in a pavement crack is no longer something to ignore. Once you’re alive to the habits of marigolds and all the rest, they leap out from the crowd, and soon you’re seeing ‘time’ wherever there are flowers and leaves.”
From Ch. 3 Waulking Songs and Furlong-Ways: Beating time by the human voice and body
“In the West now, not many of us associate creating music with work. But [in the Outer Hebrides] song and poetry were tightly woven into everyday life … The songs were tailored to the rhythm and speed of the work in hand…”
From Ch. 4 Scratch Dials and Stick Dials: Dividing the day by the flow of shadows
“Many modern sundials are sophisticated instruments designed to find with precision the same ‘equal’ hours that clocks keep. ... But my particular enthusiasm is for the marvellously variable rough-and-ready methods past generations had of telling time by shadows: by arranging sticks in the turf, observing the shadow of their own body, or etching wobbly lines into walls.”
From Ch. 5 Daymarks: Tracing time by the light over the landscape
“All around Iceland there are places named for the time of day, like Early-morning Cairn, Morning Valley, Midday Hill, Mid-afternoon Mountain, Evening Ruin, Night-time Waterfall. These special kinds of landmark are known as daymarks and were once common across Norse cultures. But they survived for much longer in Iceland and have left exceptionally vivid traces.”
From Ch. 6 The Gloaming and the Dimpse: Sensing time by the colours and qualities of twilight
‘Gloaming is likely to have come from an old Germanic root, glô-, which also gave us the word ‘glow’. It may have referred to the gleaming of sunset (or sunrise) before coming to mean the dim and shady twilight. And yet this audible ‘glow’ in gloaming still feels apt. Because at day’s end, of course, the world doesn’t just fade to black as if a celestial dimmer switch is being turned down. In the prelude to the night, as the light starts to drop, the sky burns with its most intense colours of the day.”
From Ch. 7 Star Clocks: Marking time by the motion of the night sky
“To gesture to the sky – to orient yourself in time and space by mapping the movement of the stars against the local skyline with your own lively digits – feels remarkably different from casting a glance at a machine. It’s among those other ways of gauging time by the body and the senses – by the shrinking of a shadow, the glow over a daymark, the changing colours of the sky and air – that binds us to our present world.”
May 27, 2026
This is a beautifully written, hugely informative and thought-provoking book about the old ways of telling the time of day, and the pleasures of devoting attention to overlooked details around us today.
I’m not sure it falls into any neat categories – perhaps nature writing comes closest - but I found it all the more enjoyable for its surprising range and depth.
There are chapters on the habits of birds and bats; flowers with daily movements; singing and beating time by the body (really unexpected stuff about ‘waulking’ songs by women making tweed in the Hebrides); sunlight and shadows (revelations about ‘scratch dials’ etched on the sides of churches, and Milton Keynes as you’ve never seen it before); the details of twilight; and the rise and fall of the stars.
I loved the roaming and immersive prose as the author explores chalk downland, Iceland in a blizzard, summer in inner London and a botanic garden hothouse in winter - often with experts. She weaves in with this fascinating and deeply researched explanations drawing on science, literature and history.
I’d recommend reading it slowly and taking time to absorb all the different ways of perceiving and connecting with the world around us.
I’m not sure it falls into any neat categories – perhaps nature writing comes closest - but I found it all the more enjoyable for its surprising range and depth.
There are chapters on the habits of birds and bats; flowers with daily movements; singing and beating time by the body (really unexpected stuff about ‘waulking’ songs by women making tweed in the Hebrides); sunlight and shadows (revelations about ‘scratch dials’ etched on the sides of churches, and Milton Keynes as you’ve never seen it before); the details of twilight; and the rise and fall of the stars.
I loved the roaming and immersive prose as the author explores chalk downland, Iceland in a blizzard, summer in inner London and a botanic garden hothouse in winter - often with experts. She weaves in with this fascinating and deeply researched explanations drawing on science, literature and history.
I’d recommend reading it slowly and taking time to absorb all the different ways of perceiving and connecting with the world around us.
May 20, 2026
Sometimes I like to do a deep dive into a topic that interests me; nonfiction biography or learning. I thought I was interested in the history of time and different ways of telling time.....but alas I am not as interested as I thought. This book, while beautifully filled with history and detail and very specific language, felt like a PhD dissertation to me. I'm not sure if I needed the book to be inhabited with people or characters to resonate for me but this was just not doing it for me. Too detailed? Not sure. I still am interested in time and won't write off the topic, but this book didn't satisfy my curiosity enough.
May 25, 2026
Fascinating! We have lost track of (natural) time, but it might not be too late to rediscover it. If we look hard enough at the birds, and flowers, and the sky.
May 30, 2026
Before Standard Time set the pace and clocks became an inevitable invasion, man relied on the rhythms of creatures, shadows and the beating of their own hearts to mark the passage of days. In The Fullness of Time, Author Cathy Haynes explores the often ancient, yet not so distant, ways of relying on the natural world to tell time.
There was so much here to learn, and I really had no idea how much ancient wisdom we’ve lost with the invention of this simple “modern” technology. Through the observation of creatures, flowers, human voice, shadow, landscape, light, and stars, Hayes invites us to journey alongside her into discovering the lost art of setting pace alongside the natural rhythms of the day.
I really did enjoy this one, and it sparked a lot of curiosity about the world on my side of the pond. My only disappointment with this book came from myself, that I wasn’t a London native who could go out and observe the many flowers, bird and hidden scratch dials mentioned in this book.
For those with a curiosity about lost wisdom and a pension to slow down, this book has a lot to give.
Many thanks to Riverhead Books for the gifted copy.
There was so much here to learn, and I really had no idea how much ancient wisdom we’ve lost with the invention of this simple “modern” technology. Through the observation of creatures, flowers, human voice, shadow, landscape, light, and stars, Hayes invites us to journey alongside her into discovering the lost art of setting pace alongside the natural rhythms of the day.
I really did enjoy this one, and it sparked a lot of curiosity about the world on my side of the pond. My only disappointment with this book came from myself, that I wasn’t a London native who could go out and observe the many flowers, bird and hidden scratch dials mentioned in this book.
For those with a curiosity about lost wisdom and a pension to slow down, this book has a lot to give.
Many thanks to Riverhead Books for the gifted copy.
April 23, 2026
4.5 stars
June 11, 2026
Over time I’ve become more alive to the opening and closing times of other local botanical beings, like the yolky yellow zucchini flowers yawning wide in the allotments early in the morning and a neighbor’s pink-and-yellow four o’clocks waking in late afternoon. It seems to me that once you start noticing the population of these special kinds of plant in your area—when you’re on winking terms with your local daisies, say, and sensitive to the habits of the creeping wood sorrel in a street gutter—the world starts appearing with a new filter. A flowerbed is not only a source of sensory pleasure but a site of intrigue. Even a straggly clump of opportunists in a pavement crack is no longer something to ignore. Once you’re alive to the habits of marigolds and all the rest, they leap out from the crowd, and soon you’re seeing “time” wherever there are flowers and leaves.
There are other ways of using your body to improvise a sundial. Mario told me about techniques that Italian shepherds in past centuries used for mapping shadows with their hands. One especially rough-and-ready method has been documented in a photo without explanation, but it seems easy enough to figure out.
This magical book had me tuning in so much more to the natural world around me for days and days, and I hope I can sustain it for the rest of my life. There is such art and craft and keen observation in thinking of time in the ways the author described them, and so well, in lush, lyrical language that is perfect for the subject, at times very Annie Dillard-esque. I was at a funeral of a young woman gone too soon recently and a former coworker who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a frightfully short time after he retired told me of a sculpture with a sundial his brother made for him right before I started this book, so I felt timeless in both directions and felt the magic even more acutely and vividly. Perhaps one of the best books of my year.
This book is an adventure in discovering how past generations told the time of day by signs from the living world or used their own bodies and voices to judge spans of time. In our increasingly clock-bound and screen-immersed existence, it’s an invitation to notice subtle changes in the living world, even in the concrete-and-glass heart of the twenty-first-century city. Over the coming chapters we will sense time through the day from the dawn chorus, flowers folding up at noon, singers beating the rhythm of a task, the slow slide of shadows and sunbeams, the air turning golden, our planet spinning against the stars. While our world may still tick most loudly to the beat of the clock, by becoming more attentive to signs like these, I hope we might deepen our awareness of the fullness of time.
Is it possible to tell time by the sequence of birds joining the dawn chorus? In the mid-1800s, several English-language journals broadcast the curious news from “foreign journals” that “a German woodsman has invented an ornithological clock.” Before dawn in summer, according to the reports, the chaffinch—“the earliest riser among all the feathery tribes”—starts singing from one-thirty to two o’clock and is followed at half-hour intervals by the blackcap, the quail, the hedge sparrow, the blackbird, the lark, the “black-headed titmouse” (coal tit?), and finally, from five to five-thirty, the sparrow.
The dawn light resets the plants’ clocks each morning, keeping them in sync with the cycle of sunlight and darkness in the world around them. Over the rest of the day and night, the clock also takes time cues from changes in the quality of the light, the ambient temperature and rising sugar levels as the plant makes energy from sunlight. This subtle timekeeping system matters because, as Alex’s research group at the university has found, when a plant struggles to get in rhythm with the daylight and darkness, it will be smaller and weaker than its peers.
The inscription in Old English around the half-circle declares, “This is day’s sun-marker at every tide” (hour): “ÞIS IS DÆGES SOLMERCA ÆT ILCVM TIDE.” The hole at the top would have held a rod protruding horizontally from the wall to make a shadow over the lines below. The crosses on some of the lines strongly suggest they mark times for worship. To me, the neatly drawn lines look like they would split the day evenly. But their equally spaced divisions wouldn’t, in fact, measure equal intervals of time. (To achieve that would require repositioning the lines by a refined mathematical art developed by ancient astronomers.) Although in everyday life, people wouldn’t have looked for that kind of precision or noticed the difference in duration between one hour and the next. Among the old ways of telling time by shadows, the scratch dials appeal to me most for their delicacy and slightness, and for how directly some seem to translate immaterial shadow into solid stone.
Evening after evening, as the Sun sets and the light dims, the flow of colors in the atmosphere and the deterioration in the visibility of objects around us follow roughly the same pattern. Evening twilight begins at sunset. It ends when the atmosphere can become no darker, and all the stars have come out (on a clear night). Theoretically this happens when the Sun drops 18° below your horizon. And there are two twilights every day. Morning (dawn) twilight starts when the rising Sun reaches 18° below the horizon and ends at sunrise. So, while the twilight that ushers in the night may appear very different from the one that repels it, by scientific definition they’re essentially the same phenomenon, unfolding in reverse.
There are other ways of using your body to improvise a sundial. Mario told me about techniques that Italian shepherds in past centuries used for mapping shadows with their hands. One especially rough-and-ready method has been documented in a photo without explanation, but it seems easy enough to figure out.
This magical book had me tuning in so much more to the natural world around me for days and days, and I hope I can sustain it for the rest of my life. There is such art and craft and keen observation in thinking of time in the ways the author described them, and so well, in lush, lyrical language that is perfect for the subject, at times very Annie Dillard-esque. I was at a funeral of a young woman gone too soon recently and a former coworker who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a frightfully short time after he retired told me of a sculpture with a sundial his brother made for him right before I started this book, so I felt timeless in both directions and felt the magic even more acutely and vividly. Perhaps one of the best books of my year.
This book is an adventure in discovering how past generations told the time of day by signs from the living world or used their own bodies and voices to judge spans of time. In our increasingly clock-bound and screen-immersed existence, it’s an invitation to notice subtle changes in the living world, even in the concrete-and-glass heart of the twenty-first-century city. Over the coming chapters we will sense time through the day from the dawn chorus, flowers folding up at noon, singers beating the rhythm of a task, the slow slide of shadows and sunbeams, the air turning golden, our planet spinning against the stars. While our world may still tick most loudly to the beat of the clock, by becoming more attentive to signs like these, I hope we might deepen our awareness of the fullness of time.
Is it possible to tell time by the sequence of birds joining the dawn chorus? In the mid-1800s, several English-language journals broadcast the curious news from “foreign journals” that “a German woodsman has invented an ornithological clock.” Before dawn in summer, according to the reports, the chaffinch—“the earliest riser among all the feathery tribes”—starts singing from one-thirty to two o’clock and is followed at half-hour intervals by the blackcap, the quail, the hedge sparrow, the blackbird, the lark, the “black-headed titmouse” (coal tit?), and finally, from five to five-thirty, the sparrow.
The dawn light resets the plants’ clocks each morning, keeping them in sync with the cycle of sunlight and darkness in the world around them. Over the rest of the day and night, the clock also takes time cues from changes in the quality of the light, the ambient temperature and rising sugar levels as the plant makes energy from sunlight. This subtle timekeeping system matters because, as Alex’s research group at the university has found, when a plant struggles to get in rhythm with the daylight and darkness, it will be smaller and weaker than its peers.
The inscription in Old English around the half-circle declares, “This is day’s sun-marker at every tide” (hour): “ÞIS IS DÆGES SOLMERCA ÆT ILCVM TIDE.” The hole at the top would have held a rod protruding horizontally from the wall to make a shadow over the lines below. The crosses on some of the lines strongly suggest they mark times for worship. To me, the neatly drawn lines look like they would split the day evenly. But their equally spaced divisions wouldn’t, in fact, measure equal intervals of time. (To achieve that would require repositioning the lines by a refined mathematical art developed by ancient astronomers.) Although in everyday life, people wouldn’t have looked for that kind of precision or noticed the difference in duration between one hour and the next. Among the old ways of telling time by shadows, the scratch dials appeal to me most for their delicacy and slightness, and for how directly some seem to translate immaterial shadow into solid stone.
Evening after evening, as the Sun sets and the light dims, the flow of colors in the atmosphere and the deterioration in the visibility of objects around us follow roughly the same pattern. Evening twilight begins at sunset. It ends when the atmosphere can become no darker, and all the stars have come out (on a clear night). Theoretically this happens when the Sun drops 18° below your horizon. And there are two twilights every day. Morning (dawn) twilight starts when the rising Sun reaches 18° below the horizon and ends at sunrise. So, while the twilight that ushers in the night may appear very different from the one that repels it, by scientific definition they’re essentially the same phenomenon, unfolding in reverse.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Time is a construct for how we spend our days, allowing us to schedule events with others, meet deadlines, sleep, eat, work, and play following a collective rhythm. We use the clock and hours to agree on when to do those things. And yet, another type of time exists: the time of nature where the indications from the color of the sky, the opening of a flower, the movement and calls of insects and animals, or the position of the sun and stars are used predict outcomes or schedule events—because (as explained by scratch dial expert Ben Jones) as long as everyone in the community uses the same conventions to mark time, everyone will be in agreement.
Cathy Haynes grew up on a farm where her parents and grandparents lived by nature time. She describes days and seasons through their eyes and others in this lovely book, “The Fullness of Time.” Haynes spent years exploring plant time, birdsong time, singing time, sundial time, and night time. She read broadly, researched, and spoke with many experts in the fields of botany, medieval history, anthropology, zoology, and astronomy. Each chapter focuses on a different way to measure the passing of time, determine the hour of the day or night, the completion of a project or a season.
After spending time looking for daymarks in Iceland, she begins looking for her own daymarks at home in London, the time of day sunlight strikes a place in the floor or shines along her aptly named Noon Street. She joins an astronomers club to learn about the night sky and how to tell time by the stars. Haynes invites readers to look for their own daymarks and consider marking time by the sun, the passing of a daily train, or the cheers of students leaving school for the day.
Reflective, poetic, and informative, The Fullness of Time encourages us to slow down and observe the world around us. In closing, Haynes recounts that her study of telling time using nature has led her to pay more attention to the world around her and less attention to her phone; for many of us, that in itself is reason to read and learn from this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #thefullnessoftime
Cathy Haynes grew up on a farm where her parents and grandparents lived by nature time. She describes days and seasons through their eyes and others in this lovely book, “The Fullness of Time.” Haynes spent years exploring plant time, birdsong time, singing time, sundial time, and night time. She read broadly, researched, and spoke with many experts in the fields of botany, medieval history, anthropology, zoology, and astronomy. Each chapter focuses on a different way to measure the passing of time, determine the hour of the day or night, the completion of a project or a season.
After spending time looking for daymarks in Iceland, she begins looking for her own daymarks at home in London, the time of day sunlight strikes a place in the floor or shines along her aptly named Noon Street. She joins an astronomers club to learn about the night sky and how to tell time by the stars. Haynes invites readers to look for their own daymarks and consider marking time by the sun, the passing of a daily train, or the cheers of students leaving school for the day.
Reflective, poetic, and informative, The Fullness of Time encourages us to slow down and observe the world around us. In closing, Haynes recounts that her study of telling time using nature has led her to pay more attention to the world around her and less attention to her phone; for many of us, that in itself is reason to read and learn from this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #thefullnessoftime
May 12, 2026
This is a lovely book.
Cathy Haynes has written “The Fullness of Time: Marking the Day by Birdsong, Blooms, Shadows and Stars”, a guide to the many ways in which we can use nature to tell the time. The order in which birds join and leave the dawn chorus; the succession of colours in the sunset; flowers which open and close at different points in the day – all of these can be used to estimate how far through the day you are. My favourite technique was the observation of the shape of sheeps’ eyes, which become more circular as sunset approaches.
There is an over-riding theme to the book – the sense that we are losing our connection to nature, to the tyranny of modern technology. Cathy recalls growing up on a farm, where her father told the time of day by the position of shadows, a technique which she came to understand better as she was writing the book – there’s a fascinating chapter on the rudimentary “scratch sundials” which you can still find on the walls of old churches.
Cathy does a good job of convincing us to slow down and take a closer look at the rhythms of the day. She plants California poppies and night-scented stock in the communal car park, to watch the behaviour of the leaves; she watches sunsets attentively, to discern the evolution of colours through the gloaming and the dimpse. She discusses the way that Thomas Hardy’s characters – in rural settings, of course – use the wheeling of stars around the pole to estimate time, then goes out with stargazers to try it for herself.
Full disclosure – Cathy approached me with some technical questions on the astronomical sections of the book (I didn’t know her before she contacted me). I was impressed by her attention to detail and impressed even more when I read the acknowledgements and found there were dozens more like me who she had talked to, in many different fields.
This book has clearly been a labour of love. Recommended.
Cathy Haynes has written “The Fullness of Time: Marking the Day by Birdsong, Blooms, Shadows and Stars”, a guide to the many ways in which we can use nature to tell the time. The order in which birds join and leave the dawn chorus; the succession of colours in the sunset; flowers which open and close at different points in the day – all of these can be used to estimate how far through the day you are. My favourite technique was the observation of the shape of sheeps’ eyes, which become more circular as sunset approaches.
There is an over-riding theme to the book – the sense that we are losing our connection to nature, to the tyranny of modern technology. Cathy recalls growing up on a farm, where her father told the time of day by the position of shadows, a technique which she came to understand better as she was writing the book – there’s a fascinating chapter on the rudimentary “scratch sundials” which you can still find on the walls of old churches.
Cathy does a good job of convincing us to slow down and take a closer look at the rhythms of the day. She plants California poppies and night-scented stock in the communal car park, to watch the behaviour of the leaves; she watches sunsets attentively, to discern the evolution of colours through the gloaming and the dimpse. She discusses the way that Thomas Hardy’s characters – in rural settings, of course – use the wheeling of stars around the pole to estimate time, then goes out with stargazers to try it for herself.
Full disclosure – Cathy approached me with some technical questions on the astronomical sections of the book (I didn’t know her before she contacted me). I was impressed by her attention to detail and impressed even more when I read the acknowledgements and found there were dozens more like me who she had talked to, in many different fields.
This book has clearly been a labour of love. Recommended.
May 1, 2026
„Дори в шума и врявата на тъмните ни улици, проявленията на природата остават“
/ Марсел Минаерт, Фламандски слънчев физик и астроном
"Но за толкова много от нас ограниченията на работното време и живота на закрито означават, че сме склонни да пропускаме драмата на небето. Как бихме могли да бъдем убедени да отидем до прозореца и да излезем на улицата, за да му се насладим повече? В „Кое време е това място?“ (1972), визионерският американски градоустройствен специалист Кевин Линч се оплаква как все по-честото ни съществуване на закрито ни отдалечава от признаците на времето от природните цикли."
" Стив паркира колата до наблюдателницата си в сумрак: порта, обърната на запад, към пасище за добитък на няколко мили от морето. Промъкваме се през калта до сивата метална порта и оглеждаме пейзажа. Зелените пасища са пресечени с кафяви живи плетове. Покрив на хамбар се показва зад дърветата. Далечните хълмове са топло сиви, гладки и ниски, като китове, разбиващи вълните. Небето е бледосиньо и златно, с тънки кичури бяло и розов облак. На земята около нас въздухът изглежда по-мрачен и по-син. Но усещането ми, че все още е ден, сякаш се потвърждава от трептяща суматоха на дългоопашати синигери, които за кратко се настаняват и подсвиркват в живия плет до нас."
/ Марсел Минаерт, Фламандски слънчев физик и астроном
"Но за толкова много от нас ограниченията на работното време и живота на закрито означават, че сме склонни да пропускаме драмата на небето. Как бихме могли да бъдем убедени да отидем до прозореца и да излезем на улицата, за да му се насладим повече? В „Кое време е това място?“ (1972), визионерският американски градоустройствен специалист Кевин Линч се оплаква как все по-честото ни съществуване на закрито ни отдалечава от признаците на времето от природните цикли."
" Стив паркира колата до наблюдателницата си в сумрак: порта, обърната на запад, към пасище за добитък на няколко мили от морето. Промъкваме се през калта до сивата метална порта и оглеждаме пейзажа. Зелените пасища са пресечени с кафяви живи плетове. Покрив на хамбар се показва зад дърветата. Далечните хълмове са топло сиви, гладки и ниски, като китове, разбиващи вълните. Небето е бледосиньо и златно, с тънки кичури бяло и розов облак. На земята около нас въздухът изглежда по-мрачен и по-син. Но усещането ми, че все още е ден, сякаш се потвърждава от трептяща суматоха на дългоопашати синигери, които за кратко се настаняват и подсвиркват в живия плет до нас."
May 22, 2026
What a lovely read this was, how it turned my attention to the eternal natural world and what it has been telling us, now and in the past and forever. Our technology and devices have made us lazy and unobservant. Commerce’s demands for detail and precision has made us dependent on devices. But once we understood ‘time’ in a holistic way, through observation of the world around us.
From when flowers bloom and open to the stars swirling in the sky, from our shadows to the color of the sky at dusk and dawn, people once understood the time of day.
Even human endeavors marked time: In the Dales of England “the length of six needles” means the time it took to work the loops off needles while knitting. Women sang while waulking tweed fabric, beating it as they passed it around, making it waterproof and soft, their singing keeping time and coordinating the work.
Drawing from science, tradition, and history, this informative book is also a memoir of sorts as the author is changed through her experiences. The writing is lovely, the insights wondrous and wise.
Thanks to Riverhead Books for a free book.
From when flowers bloom and open to the stars swirling in the sky, from our shadows to the color of the sky at dusk and dawn, people once understood the time of day.
Even human endeavors marked time: In the Dales of England “the length of six needles” means the time it took to work the loops off needles while knitting. Women sang while waulking tweed fabric, beating it as they passed it around, making it waterproof and soft, their singing keeping time and coordinating the work.
Drawing from science, tradition, and history, this informative book is also a memoir of sorts as the author is changed through her experiences. The writing is lovely, the insights wondrous and wise.
Thanks to Riverhead Books for a free book.
April 25, 2026
Thank you NetGalley and Riverhead Books for the review copy of "The Fullness of Time" by Cathy Haynes.
This was an interesting and entertaining read about tracking time. Time, or at least the idea of it, dictates so much of our lives, and I often wondered how people measured time before clocks were widely available. I knew about sundials, of course. Probably every schoolkid has made a rudimentary paper plate sundial for at least one science class. And I understood that the passage of time could be gauged by the stars.
Haynes takes readers on a walk through time, beginning with the observance of plant behavior at different times of day and night. She and her partner visit cathedrals with sundials etched into walls and explore Iceland learning about daymarkers, and finally look to the stars. My favorite part was definitely the chapter about plants (and I took notes!), but I found this an engaging book overall, and recommend it to anyone else who wonders how time works and why.
This was an interesting and entertaining read about tracking time. Time, or at least the idea of it, dictates so much of our lives, and I often wondered how people measured time before clocks were widely available. I knew about sundials, of course. Probably every schoolkid has made a rudimentary paper plate sundial for at least one science class. And I understood that the passage of time could be gauged by the stars.
Haynes takes readers on a walk through time, beginning with the observance of plant behavior at different times of day and night. She and her partner visit cathedrals with sundials etched into walls and explore Iceland learning about daymarkers, and finally look to the stars. My favorite part was definitely the chapter about plants (and I took notes!), but I found this an engaging book overall, and recommend it to anyone else who wonders how time works and why.
June 3, 2026
**2–3 Stars**
I ultimately did not finish this audiobook. My expectations and the book's focus simply weren't aligned.
I picked up *The Fullness of Time* hoping to learn practical ways to observe and mark time through the natural world and incorporate those ideas into my own life. Instead, I found the book heavily focused on scientific, historical, and technical explanations. While it's clear the author is knowledgeable and well-researched, the material felt more like a dissertation than an engaging narrative.
Combined with a narration style that I found monotonous, I kept waiting for the book to become more accessible and applicable to everyday life. After listening to more than a third of the audiobook, I realized I was no longer interested in continuing.
Readers who enjoy detailed natural history and the science behind traditional timekeeping may find much to appreciate here. Unfortunately, it wasn't the experience I was looking for.
I ultimately did not finish this audiobook. My expectations and the book's focus simply weren't aligned.
I picked up *The Fullness of Time* hoping to learn practical ways to observe and mark time through the natural world and incorporate those ideas into my own life. Instead, I found the book heavily focused on scientific, historical, and technical explanations. While it's clear the author is knowledgeable and well-researched, the material felt more like a dissertation than an engaging narrative.
Combined with a narration style that I found monotonous, I kept waiting for the book to become more accessible and applicable to everyday life. After listening to more than a third of the audiobook, I realized I was no longer interested in continuing.
Readers who enjoy detailed natural history and the science behind traditional timekeeping may find much to appreciate here. Unfortunately, it wasn't the experience I was looking for.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In the days before watches people had a way of telling time by the use of nature. Author Cathy Haynes takes us on a leisurely stroll down 7 different methods of determining time.. From birds to flowers, sundials. colors of twilight and the stars above. We begin to realize how out of touch we really are with the ways that nature communicates with us and that the world did survive for thousands of years without being tied to down a clock on a wall, a watch on our wrist or a phone that is an atomic clock. Wonderful effort and I learned so very much about nature along the way.
3.5***
3.5***
June 8, 2026
Sorry, I know Authors work hard on their manuscripts, but I found this lacking in many ways. The writing was difficult, some observations were so obvious that I had a hard time understanding why they were included. I could go on . . . I am fascinated by the changes in shadows throughout the year and feel like I already understood half of everything included. The scratch dials and different twilight stages and colors were interesting.
Review of advance copy
A quirky, enjoyable read. I learned a lot and also hope to be more aware of my natural surroundings.
May 7, 2026
One of my favorite books that I’ve read so far this year.
May 11, 2026
Such an interesting book, cannot wait to spot a scratch sundial and commit some time to watch the sunset on a cloudless day. Loved it.
June 4, 2026
Our 95th Retirement Read Aloud
June 25, 2026
A lovely meander with different methods of telling time based on the seasons. It has a western European focus.
June 18, 2026
I don't like all the pictures in the book, but otherwise this was a good read.
Want to Read
June 23, 2026The author of the book, About Time, gave this book high praise: “A deeply attentive view over signs of the time; time—as Haynes chronicles so beautifully—in its fullness. A revelatory and utterly wonderful book.” —David Rooney, author of About Time
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews