World | swan Swan-Boat Romance Takes Wing (Again) After actual feathered male forsakes her, Petra flocks back to plastic paramour By Matt Cantor Posted Mar 28, 2008 2:57 PM CDT Copied Petra, a black swan, swims next to a boat shaped like an outsized white swan after she was taken back to the Aasee in Muenster, Germany, Friday, March 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) After her real-life avian lover flew the coop, a German black swan has returned to her ex—a swan-shaped paddleboat, the AP reports. Petra was joined at the wing with the craft in 2006—but that relationship seemed to have sung its swan song when both were taken to a zoo for the winter—where she dumped it for a real male. Gander Paul left last weekend, a heartbreak that prompted zoo authorities to free her, alongside the paddleboat, in a nearby lake; it's too early to tell whether she’ll stand by her plastic friend this time, said the zoo’s director. Meanwhile, Petra has become a national celebrity, Der Spiegel reports. “What the swan wants, she gets,” the boat’s owner once said. Read These Next Beyonce leaves national anthem unfinished. A space capsule carrying ashes of 160 people crashed in the ocean. A lesson in minding your own business ... at 30,000 feet. The death toll in the Texas floods has risen to 27, including 9 kids. Report an error