Plum blossoms, maybe, but not yet

I might have taken some photographs of plum blossoms today. The Man and I have only just learned how to tell the difference between cherry blossoms and plum blossoms, and now we show off our knowledge every time we see a blossom. As we're concerned any blossom that isn't a cherry blossom is a plum blossom. That means every blossom we see right now, because it's too early for cherry blossoms around here yet. When they start blooming it will be all over TV, and we'll know.

It is a bit embarrassing how little we know about birds and flowers and so on. When I first came to Japan I was constantly amazed at how many Japanese people could name the plants and insects and birds around them. There seems to be quite a heavy emphasis on this at school, and it probably helps that trees in parks are often labelled. (Birds and insects aren't, but that's probably only because nobody's figured out how to do it efficiently yet.) However, when I tried to use The Man as a resource, thinking that since he is Japanese he would know this stuff, I discovered that he must have missed school that day.

"What's that bird?" I asked him one day, and he answered, authoritatively,

"It's a thrush."

It was a pretty funny looking thrush, I thought, and I was right. It turned out to be a bulbul. I have since learned that, It's a thrush is The Man's standard answer for any bird that isn't a sparrow, crow, or duck. He's almost as bad with insects, and for flowers he asks me, which is pretty funny.

So today I took pictures of blossoms that I'm calling plum blossoms (because they definitely aren't cherry blossoms), but Blogger won't let me upload them. You will have to wait to be able to tell me how right (or wrong) I am.