Edinburgh panda Yang Guang celebrates ninth birthday with cake

ONE of the UK’s two pandas celebrated his birthday on British soil for the first time as he turned nine.

• Yang Guang, meaning Sunshine, arrived in Edinburgh with Tian Tian (Sweetie) in December of last year

• Tian Tian will celebrate her ninth birthday in ten days time

• The boisterous panda has been given a birthday cake and presents made of bamboo

Keepers at Edinburgh Zoo made a cake in the shape of a panda’s head for birthday boy Yang Guang yesterday, as well as spreading bamboo treats throughout his enclosure.

He took his time to explore and munch on the different-sized boxes made from some of his favourite varieties of bamboo poles.

The presents were smeared with honey and concealed chunks of apple and carrot for him to discover.

His birthday comes just ten days before that of the zoo’s other panda, female Tian Tian, who turns nine on 24 August. The pair have become a popular attraction since they arrived in Scotland from the Ya’an reserve in Chengdu, China, in December.

Panda keeper Alison Maclean said: “We had to think about what we were going to get them for their birthday because what do you get a panda? The answer to that is bamboo, so we’ve made some boxes out of ­bamboo.”

l For more pictures go to www.scotman.com/edinburgh