A true political heavyweight can turn even the most mundane event into an international sensation, and outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel has done just that in pictures taken at a bird park in the small town of Marlow.
The image of Merkel screaming as she was being swarmed by colorful Australian lorikeet parrots, whom she tried to feed, has been reposted numerous times on social media and made the ‘Photo of the Day’ section of global news agencies on Friday.
One of the hungry birds apparently missed the paper cup containing treats and bit the head of government on the hand.
The chancellor visited the bird park as part of a farewell tour of her constituency in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the north of the country.
Merkel has been in power for almost 16 years, but she will leave office after Sunday’s federal election, which will see the Germans choosing a new chancellor for themselves.
The bird park photos mainly garnered a positive reaction on Twitter, with many users confessing that they were going to miss the 67-year-old political veteran, who they had got used to seeing for so many years.
One of the commenters suggested that the images symbolized that Merkel is finally going to be “free as a bird” after resigning from the top job in the country.
But, of course, the jokes couldn’t be completely avoided, and the pictures reminded some people of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror-thriller, ‘The Birds’.
Incidentally, Merkel refused an invitation for her to hold a much larger European eagle owl in her hands, saying: “No, no. I did fine with the parakeets,” the DPA news agency reported.
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