Smithsonian National Zoo, Chapter 2

Two of the super-stars at the National Zoo are the pair of Giant Pandas, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang.  Their first offspring Bao Bao reached the age of 3 and she was repatriated to China this past March.  Their current cub, Bei Bei is just of a year and a half old, and he's doing fine.  So it's time and Mei Xiang seems to be in agreement to breed again.  If she were to conceive and successfully bear a third cub, she would be one of the most prolific Giant Panda's in captivity. 

Today, Tian Tian was out in the yard goofing around and delightfully climbed to the top of a little spruce tree.  Where he proved to the visitors assembled the old "Chinese" saying, "It's easier to get up into a tree, than it is to get down from a tree"!  And still he managed to arrive back on terra firma hind feet first. 

 I think I love this photo best of all!--silly panda!

  In an adjacent habitat, Mei Xiang was also feeling frisky and spent some time playing with a burlap sack from which she had removed her bamboo lunch, but of which she seemed less interested in at the moment than the sack.  When you get a chance to really watch them, you understand what amazing creatures they are.

When I observed the pandas, the interior habitat, where Bei Bei was, wasn't open, and when I came back around at the end of my visit, the lines were obscene.  So no Bei Bei this time.