Staff at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo present giant panda Qing Bao with a cake and presents in Washington. All pictures: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post
They came from near and far Friday morning to see Qing Bao - a big black-and-white ball of fuzzy cuteness - celebrate her fourth birthday.
Shortly after 9 am, as keepers lifted the gate to let her go to her outdoor enclosure, a crowd of 200 - parents, grandparents, kids, teens and passersby - watched intently. Some were from D.C. Others from as far as Massachusetts, Texas and Japan. They oohed and awwed as Washington’s most famous animal Qing Bao, a giant panda at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, lumbered through the grass.
She first nibbled on some carrots that her keepers had sprinkled in her yard to lure her to a multitiered fruitsicle cake, shaped like a 4 and made from diluted beet, apple and pineapple juices and decorated with some of her favorite treats - blueberries, apples, peaches and strawberries. She reached up into a tree and batted one of her birthday gifts - a new ball - down from a branch. She took a few more steps and nibbled on one of her birthday boxes and the sweet potato she found inside.
Then she moved closer to the cake.
As kids perched on their parents’ shoulders and others held their cameras above onlookers’ heads, visitors squealed with delight and broke out in huge grins, gushing all at once.
When Qing Bao reached her frozen treat, she sat down - with her back slightly to the crowd - and chomped, as one onlooker launched the crowd in a verse of "Happy Birthday.”
It was Qing Bao’s first birthday at the zoo. She arrived at the facility last October with male giant panda Bao Li. She was born Sept. 12, 2021, at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan, to her father Qing Qing and mother Jia Mei. Her name is pronounced ching-BOW and means "green” and "treasure” in Mandarin Chinese.
Keepers said they have not yet bred Qing Bao and Bao Li, who turned 4 on Aug. 4, because they’re both still quite young. Giant pandas reach maturity between the ages of 5 and 7, so officials said they’ll work with their partners in China to decide when the pair mates.
Pandas stay in solitary enclosures at the zoo, but keepers said Bao Li and Qing Bao have glimpsed each other from their side-by-side areas through their "howdy” doors - an opening with mesh.
"She’d look at him, and he’d look at her,” said animal keeper Trish Jarvis.
Still, the excitement of having a pair to breed soon - and a birthday to celebrate - drew plenty of fanfare.
The zoo typically holds a public birthday event for its pandas. Qing Bao’s party was themed "4-Ever Sweet.” Partygoers came decked out in all things panda - earrings, necklaces, socks, tattoos, and headbands with panda ears.
Adina Carlson brought her children, husband and their grandmother to the zoo when it opened at 8 a.m. so her panda-obsessed 10-year-old daughter Cora could get a front row spot overlooking Qing Bao’s enclosure. The family, from Dallas, had been planning their trip to visit Washington for a year and came to the zoo Friday just for the celebration.
"I’m really, really excited to see pandas because I’ve never seen them before,” Cora said. "And I was so excited when I found out it was her birthday because it makes it so much more cooler.”
After watching Qing Bao snack on her treats and eat her cake, Cora said, "She’s really smart, getting into the boxes. And the way she eats - she was so cute.”
Adrian and Lena Lundberg and their four children - from Sweden - had stopped in D.C. as part of their year-long, around-the-world trip and were thrilled to see a giant panda in person for the first time. To visit on Qing Bao’s birthday was extra special.
"It was fun to look at her when she opened the boxes,” said their 8-year-old son Viggo.
Dylan Nelkin, 30, of New York, had planned a trip to visit friends in Silver Spring around the birthday event and took the Metro to get to the zoo early enough to get close to the panda exhibit.
"They’re so cute,” he said, as he recorded Qing Bao eating her cake and showed a panda tattoo on his arm.
Jarvis, the keeper, said Qing Bao has been "a little bit spacey” and sleepier, and she has been eating a less because she is going through "pseudopregnancy,” a phenomenon where a female panda behaves as if she’s pregnant, even though she isn’t. Earlier this spring, keepers said Qing Bao experienced her first estrus cycle - the short window of 24 to 72 hours when female giant pandas are able to conceive.
Giant pandas typically eat between 70 and 100 pounds of bamboo a day. But in her pseudopregnancy state, keepers said, Qing Bao is eating about half that amount because she may be feeling nauseous.
"Her body is telling her she’s capable of doing this, of being a big girl,” Jarvis said. "I compare it to the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy where you don’t feel like eating anything.”
Jarvis helped set up Qing Bao’s yard with treats Friday and said behind the scenes, they were nervous about how she’d do in front of a crowd.
"I was afraid she was going to get spooked,” Jarvis said, "but she was a star. She was great.”
After about 30 minutes of her birthday guests eagerly watching her every move, Qing Bao had partied enough. She climbed a tree and nestled into the fork of its branches and took a nap.
