Via Spiegel online… 

Petra Ditches Pedal Boat for Real Swan

Petra’s year-and-a-half love affair with a plastic pedal boat made headlines around the world. Now, though, the black swan from Münster has found herself a real swan to snuggle with, leaving the boat in the lurch.

Swans, Wikipedia tells us, usually mate for life. Divorce, though, the entry goes on, "does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting failure." Which perhaps explains why Petra, the famous black swan from the German town of Münster, has ditched her boyfriend for a new beau. It is, after all, difficult to nest with a giant, plastic pedal boat.

Life is too short to stay hung up on indifferent lovers.  On the other hand…never underestimate the power of love…

Just a few days after having moved into her winter quarters with the pedal boat she fell in love with over a year and a half ago, Petra began making eyes with a newcomer. The male swan is just as white as her previous true love, but he is made of feathers and blood instead of plastic. "She seems to accept him and allows him to eat out of her food dish," a spokeswoman from the Münster zoo, where Petra spends her winters, told the local paper. Nobody, though, seems to know where the new swan came from. "He just showed up…"

Okay…it’s the hopeless romantic in me…but there’s a story somewhere here to be written about a little swan who fell in love with a lifeless hunk of plastic and wood that cold and indifferent fate had cruelly made to resemble her soulmate…and how she nonetheless loved it so wholeheartedly that a spirit began to take root and grow within that drifting lifeless hunk of plastic and wood…until one day it awakened…and embodied as a real swan.  Of course that’s where the new swan came from…

Still, a love affair with Paul would certainly be a step up from an infatuation with a swan-shaped pedal boat. And there is so far no indication that Petra is treating Paul merely as a rebound relationship. They spend much of their time swimming side-by-side. And Petra, it should be noted, isn’t known for her philandering. A number of male swans have attempted to make her acquaintance over the last two year — but Petra has rejected them all.

Perhaps…  Just saying…