Thirteen years ago, a poor fisherman in a small Turkish village was pulling his net out of a lake when he heard a noise behind him. He turned around and saw a majestic creature standing on the bow of his rowboat.
Glistening white feathers covered its head, neck, and chest, giving approach to black plumes on its wings. It stood on skinny orange legs that just about matched the color of its long, pointed beak.
He remembered that the fisherman Adem Yilmaz recognized him as one among the white storks that spent summers in the village for a very long time, but he had never seen him on his boat so close, let alone a stork hosting him.
Wondering if he was hungry, he threw him a fish, which the bird devoured. He threw one other one. And one other one.
Thus began an unlikely tale of man and bird that captivated Turkey as the passing years – and a slick social media campaign led by a local nature photographer – spread the pair’s story as a modern fairy tale of interspecies friendship.
The stork, called Yaren, or “companion” in Turkish, not only returned to Mr. Yilmaz’s boat repeatedly in the first yr, the fisherman said, but, after migrating south for the winter, returned the following spring to the same village, the same nest – and that the boat itself.
Last month, after Yaren arrived in the village for the thirteenth yr in a row, local media happily covered his arrival like a spring sighting of Turkish Punxsutawney Phil.
The couple’s story brought unexpected fame, though not great fortune, to Yilmaz, 70, and Yaren, who’s estimated to be 17. They starred together in a kid’s book and an award-winning film Documentary. Children’s adventure film The film, with a cameo role by Mr. Yilmaz (and a digital version of the stork), is scheduled to debut in cinemas across Turkey this yr.
Stork lovers around the world can watch Yaren and his partner Nazli, or “coquette” in Turkish, as they cling to one another, crane their necks, bang their beaks, renovate the nest, and sometimes mate due to 24/7 webcam established by local government.
“It’s not a story. It’s a true story,” Ali Ozkan, mayor of Karacabey, whose district includes the village, said in an interview. “It’s a true story with the flavor of a story.”
The bird’s fame has supported city officials’ efforts to boost local tourism by creating walking trails and cafes near the district’s lakes and wetlands, he added. A “master plan” for bird care for storks has been developed in this area.
He initially faced criticism from voters who wondered why the mayor was getting involved with storks, he said. But now residents are calling when they notice damaged nests, and recently a friend from another city called him and complained that he couldn’t see Yaren on his webcam.
The story put Mr. Yilmaz’s village of 235 people, Eskikaraagac, on the map, attracting groups of students and tourists who stroll through the narrow streets to see storks and take boat rides on neighboring Lake Uluabat. Many visitors look for Yaren’s nest, which is located on a platform atop an electric pole near Mr. Yilmaz’s house, and are delighted to meet the fisherman himself, peppering him with questions and posing for photos.
One recent morning, Mr. Yilmaz stood in the yard of his small, two-story house, holding a tub of caught fish. In their nest overhead, Yaren and Nazli snoozed, preened, and filled the air with the drumming sound of their beaks.
“Friend!” Mr. Yilmaz called.
Both birds flew into the yard and Mr. Yilmaz put fish in their beaks.
“They’re full,” Mr. Yilmaz announced, after the birds had caught about twenty fish. “After 13 years, I can say this.”
Storks have long nested in the village, arriving in spring and mating, then migrating to Africa in late summer.
Village elders remember a time when it seemed like there was a stork’s nest on every roof, and residents had a hard time keeping the birds from scraping the laundry off the lines outside. However, most people liked the birds, whose arrival right after the pink flowers on the almond trees bloomed was a herald of spring.
Ridvan Cetin, elected by the village authorities, said that in the 1980s the count found 41 active nests, which means 82 storks, not counting the chicks.
This year there are only four active nests in the village, including Yarena’s nest.
“There are very few of them now,” Mr. Cetin said sadly.
No one in the village recalled a bond like the one between Mr. Yilmaz and Yaren.
“I’ve never seen anything prefer it,” Cetin said.
For Mr. Yilmaz, a quiet man with rough hands and a kind, somber face, Yaren was an unexpected addition to what he hoped would be a late, quiet chapter in an otherwise difficult life.
He grew up in poverty. His father took him from school to work in the fields and fish, no matter how cold it was.
“My life was between the field and the lake,” he said.
His mother died when he was 13. His father remarried when he was 17, to a woman Mr. Yilmaz did not like. So, with only an elementary education, he fled to Bursa, the nearest large city, and worked in a factory producing yogurt and other dairy products.
At the age of 19, he married another villager whom he had known since childhood. They lost their first child, a daughter, a few weeks after her birth. He worked in various milk factories while raising three other children, two boys and a girl, with his wife.
In 2011, when his children were grown and living elsewhere with his five grandchildren, he stopped working, returned to the village and returned to his childhood home on the lake where he had fished as a child.
“From the moment I started working, my dream was to go to my village and fish,” he said.
Soon after, the stork landed on its boat.
Every time Yaren left, Mr. Yilmaz wondered whether he would come back. But after a few years he stopped worrying.
“I was sure that as long as I lived, this bird would come back,” he said.
At first, no one cared that Mr. Yilmaz had befriended a stork. Other residents teased him or told him he was wasting his time – and his fish.
That changed in year five when Alper Tuydes, a hunter-turned-wildlife photographer who works for the local government, began sharing photos of the pair on social media. The story spread widely, gaining notoriety every spring with Yaren’s arrival.
The relationship between man and bird matches the known behavior of storks, said Omer Donduren, a Turkish ornithologist.
Although storks avoid direct contact with people, they often sit near them, on roofs, chimneys or power poles.
The birds tend to be monogamous and show loyalty to their nests by separating from their partners to migrate, but reuniting in the same nest in spring to breed.
That could explain why Yaren hung out near Mr. Yilmaz’s house year after year, Mr. Donduren said.
Storks, which can live for more than 20 years in the wild and more than 30 years in captivity, also have good memories that allow them to remember migration routes from as far north as Poland and Germany to places many thousands of miles south as far as Africa South. It’s unclear where Yaren spends his time after leaving the village, but a tracking device attached to one of his offspring followed the bird through Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic before it stopped working.
He said that over time, Yaren’s experiences with Mr. Yilmaz would likely become embedded in his memory.
“Nature doesn’t have much room for emotions,” Donduren said. “For the stork, it is a matter of easy food. He thinks, “Here is an easy source of food.” This man seems safe. He doesn’t hurt me.
Mr. Yilmaz’s explanation is much simpler.
“It’s just loving an animal,” he said. “They are God’s creatures.”
One morning, Mr. Yilmaz rowed into the lake, pulled out his net, and threw small fish into the boat.
“Yaren!” he called.
The stork took to the air, made a loop to watch the boat, and perched on a lighthouse near the shore.
“Tongue!” Mr. Yilmaz called again.
The bird took off again, eventually landing on the boat, where Mr. Yilmaz tossed him fish after fish.
After a while, the stork took to the air, circled the village and returned to its nest.
“That’s it,” Mr. Yilmaz said with a satisfied smile. “It’s full.”
