French Mistress

Germans folk are a funny sort of people sometimes. Not, haha funny, but I-can’t-grasp-this sort of funny. For instance, last year I heard the most wonderful story about a fickle German stork husband that caused a great outcry by taking on a French mistress (a female stork from Alsace) and how the city’s human population followed its development via a webcam…

You have to realise that a lot of attention is given all over Germany to its migratory stork population. For those of you who do not know, storks tend to be monogamous, and they also tend to return to the same nest every year to bear their young. Any house or farm considers themselves extremely lucky to have storks nesting at their place. And the house owners often build platforms (equipped with webcams) specifically for the convenience of their storks.

Thus the storks are not only watched closely by the scientific society, but also by the various village communities where the storks roost; their mating and egg laying and the hatching of their young, etc. are followed by many over the Internet from the webcams installed on the mast of the nests.

In Erlangen, in the south of Germany, in a wonderful traditional family beer brewery that has a terraced beer garden, a scandal occurred between the resident male and a French floozy. The male stork arrived in Erlangen after his winter vacation in Africa a week earlier than his partner (the first suspicious occurrence).

Promptly after he arrived, a French female stork arrived in his nest (suspicious occurrence II). Ohlala! And then, and then, the two storks proceeded to “amuse themselves” (quote from front page of the local newspaper) for a week before the female stork arrived.

Then, and then, the loyal wife appears! The city residence wondered what would happen? Oh ha, it’s hardly fair, the poor female stork comes home from a long journey from Africa to find her partner in bed with his French mistress. Well, the newly arrived female stork takes one look at Madame I-just-happened-to-drop-by and with no further ado throws the floozy out of the nest.

Does she go back to France? Non, bien sûr! She goes around the corner and builds a nice new nest for herself with a terraced view of her lover’s bedroom window. The hussy!

I lie not. This all occurred last year in Erlangen to one poor bloke (stork) who thought he could pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. His Big Mistake was not realising that Big Brother is looking at you…