Tamara Colloff-Bennett

Magical Swirls

An element of love is the allure and enchantment of it all, which is why we featured this folk dancer in his exotic costume with eddies of smoke rising from his incense burner in the dark of the night in this ecard from our Valentine’s Day collection.

We photographed him when he was performing as part of a fabulous folk program that we saw in Udaipur in Rajasthan during our travels in northern India four years ago.

The essence of his appearance so conjured up the magic of love in our heads that we teamed up his image with lyrics about the particular spell that love casts.

A Special Day For Lovers, Courtesy Of Geoffrey Chaucer

Love will surely be in the air tomorrow when Valentine’s Day is celebrated.

But when you think about love all over the world, the question that came to my mind was this: How did Valentine’s Day come to be associated as a special day for lovers?

Actually, this Christian feast day that has pagan roots was not linked as a romantic day for couples until the 14th century.

According to the UCLA medieval scholar Henry Ansgar Kelly, author of Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine, it was the 14th century poet Geoffrey Chaucer who first linked St. Valentine’s Day with such romance.

He did so when he composed his poem called Parlement of Foules (Parliament of Fowls in modern-day English).

It was the poetic tradition at that time to associate such an occasion with a feast day, and so in his poem of about 700 lines Chaucer linked the royal engagement in 1381 between England’s Richard II and Anne of Bohemia with the mating season of birds and with St. Valentine’s Day as a special day for couples with these two lines:

For this was on St. Valentine’s Day,
When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate.

This was the first reference to the notion of St. Valentine’s Day being a special day for lovers.

Another First, This Time For Love Poetry

Speaking of Chaucer and poetry, one can read lots of cooing about love for Valentine’s Day. And so I wondered: Quite apart from Valentine’s Day, what is the origin of love poetry?

It turns out that it comes courtesy of the same people who in around 3500 B.C. invented writing: Archaeologists claim that the oldest surviving love poem is Sumerian. Written on a clay tablet, the poem is believed to have been recited by a bride of King Shu-Sin who ruled Sumeria during the 3rd century B.C.

Archaeologists called the poem Istanbul #2461 (so much for romance, eh?), and it starts like this:

Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.

Love Poetry At Quillcards

Our Valentine’s Day ecards at Quillcards include images with partial quotations from love poetry. We also feature quotations that are the complete sayings, i.e. they are not taken from a longer poem.

What follows here are some of these ecards.

And in honor of the amorous and affectionate spirit of Valentine’s Day and to get the full sweep of meaning of the writers’ poems – when we focus in this article on a card with a partial quotation from a longer poem, we will include the complete poem from which it was taken.

Middle Ages Revisited

With a tip of the hat to Chaucer as he was the first to pair Valentine’s Day with romantic couples, here is our photo of the castle folly in Roundhay Park in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England.

One of the biggest city parks in Europe, Roundhay Park has more than 700 acres (284 hectares) of parkland, lakes, woodland and gardens that are now owned by Leeds City Council.

It’s a wonderful park, and one that David and I loved to go to when we lived in Leeds. Royalty owned it until 1872 when Prince Arthur solemnly reopened it as a public park for all people.

So it figures that that this castle folly is on the park grounds. Especially popular on 18th century estates, follies were created to represent mythical, classical, or medieval buildings and places and they also gave the wealthy landlord a way of displaying just how rich he was.

We were taken by the romantic Arthurian (as in King Arthur, that is) look of the place and we chose a quotation from this poem called Remembering by Stephen J. Lyons:

REMEMBERING by STEPHEN J. LYONS

Come here, closer, and fold
into the dent of my chest,
the crook of my shoulder.
In the open window the
candle betrays the wind’s
summer breath and the
night settles down around us.

Don’t move, not now,
let’s be still, hold this moment
before we open our bodies,
and tell me, one more time,
how you came to find me.

Eyelids Closed, Cheeks Faintly Blushed

A very different image from the stone edifice of that folly is modern sketch of ours of a female face with eyes downcast with a bit of a tinge of color in her cheeks and lips.

Here’s the original poem by Edwin Muir from which we took the featured quotation:

THE CONFIRMATION by EDWIN MUIR

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.
I in my mind had waited for this long,
Seeing the false and searching for the true,
Then found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,
What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,
A well of water in a country dry,
Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye
That makes the whole world seem bright. Your open heart,
Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,
The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,
The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea.
Not beautiful or rare in every part.
But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

Short But Ever Sweet

Some of our Valentine’s Day cards have short romantic sayings that are complete in themselves: They are ‘feng shui’ types of tiny mini poems, if you get my drift.

Here are three examples of the number we have on offer, beginning with this 11-word saying from the Holy Book of the Sikhs that we have paired with a photograph that we took in Venice:

This is a second example, a quotation (unfortunately anonymous) that I think packs a wallop into only nine words:

And here’s the third example, a delightful comment that the actress Ingrid Bergman made about what a kiss is that we have put with our sketch of a couple drawn on two lisianthus flowers:

The Bard, Of Course

Words of love in the English language owe a delicious debt to William Shakespeare, of course.

Put alongside a photo that we took of the old town center of Dijon, France, the quotation is taken from his play Henry V:

Speaking of love and Will, I found this quotation in a sweet little volume from The Arden Shakespeare series called Book Of Quotations On Love. Compiled by Jane Armstrong and published by Thomson Learning, I bought it at the bookstore of the marvellous Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London which describes itself in its website as being “a unique international resource dedicated to the exploration of Shakespeare’s work and the playhouse for which he wrote, through the connected means of performance and education.”

An Homage To Rock

Middle-aged that we are, this card above from our Valentine’s Day collection features an evocative quotation from the Cream’s song ‘The Sunshine Of Your Love’, an old favorite song of ours.

We’ve also inserted a hint that it’s an old memory of ours by coupling it with a sepia-toned version of a photo that we took on a street in London:

Pablo Neruda, A Master of Love Poetry

The Chilean poet-diplomat Pablo Neruda led a life suffused with poetic and political activity, a prolific writer who also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Neruda’s astonishing love poems read equally well in translation from the Spanish, like this Love Poem XIV from his ’20 Love Poems And A Song Of Despair’ translated here by W.S. Merwin:

LOVE POEM XIV by PABLO NERUDA

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

As you can see, we have teamed up those jaw-dropping, sizzling final two lines of Neruda’s poem with our photo of a branch of sunshine-soaked cherry blossoms.

Writing this right before Valentine’s Day in the depths of winter as I am here in Edinburgh so north in the UK, those divine final lines of Neruda’s writing and the vision of those sprightly cherry blossoms are such a much-needed tonic.

Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards

Did you know, we make a range of Valentine’s Day cards available at our sister site at Flying Twigs. We supply customers in the UK and some other countries. Check the FAQ page to see whether your country is on the list of countries to which we ship.

‘Hogmanay’, the Scottish Twist To New Year’s Festivities

Here in Scotland, New Year’s celebrations are known as ‘Hogmanay’.

The Scots word for the last day of the year and a reference to festivities here that begin with the ushering in of the New Year, Hogmanay is celebrated with events from December 30th through New Year’s Day.

The festivities have their roots in the celebration of the winter solstice amongst the Norse.

It also folds in customs from the Gaelic celebration of Samhain, which takes place earlier in the year from sunset on October 31st to sunset on November 1st. Samhain marks the period of the year which is halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

Moving on towards the winter solstice, the Vikings celebrated Yule. This later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the “Daft Days” as they were sometimes called in Scotland.

The French Connection

The most common explanation for where the word ‘Hogmanay’ comes from is that it is a
a derivation from the Northern French dialect word ‘hoguinané’, or from variants such as ‘hoginane’, ‘hoginono’ and ‘hoguinettes’.

These words in turn are derived from 16th century Old French word of ‘aguillanneuf’ which is said to mean a gift given at the New Year, children’s cries for such a gift, or New Year’s Eve itself.

Fireworks Countdown

Here in the capital of Edinburgh where my husband David and I live, there are a number of wham-bang celebrations to bring in the New Year.

For example, why waste fireworks solely on midnight when Hogamany is in full swing?

Instead, we’ve got hourly firework displays that count down to our final Midnight Fireworks that dazzle the skies above Edinburgh at the city’s landmarks of Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill.

Amongst other events, the city has high-flying rides at its large carnival, a more sedate candlelit concert at a local cathedral, a huge street party with live music smack in its center, and an event called ‘The Ceilidh’ that celebrates traditional Scottish music.

Edinburgh Castle Overseeing It All

Speaking of this time of the year and the castle which overlooks this capital, Scotland gets mighty dark particularly during these winter months.

And so we’ve tried to capture the feel of that here in this Quillcards black-and-white photo of the imposing, commanding, sheer rock of this iconic landmark:

Auld Lang Syne, A Scottish Original

To celebrate the launch of Homecoming Scotland 2014, this year simultaneous Midnight Fireworks will be fired across Scotland.

The country is aiming to get as many people as possible to join hands with friends in the biggest rendition of Auld Lang Syne, the verses of which were written by the country’s much-loved national poet and hero Robert (‘Rabbie’) Burns in 1788.

Those verses were later set to the tune of a traditional folk song which is what we still sing today.

Have You Got A Tall, Dark Man For The ‘First-Foot’?

Want to set luck for yourself for the rest of the year?

The most widespread national custom here in Scotland is that of ‘first-footing’, which starts immediately after midnight. It refers to the the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbor.

In the past people gave symbolic gifts like salt, which is less common today. However, giving coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (which is a rich fruit cake) are still given today by some, and all of these gifts are intended to bring different kinds of luck to the household.

The members of the household then give food and drink to the guests who have just stepped over their thresholds. This can go on throughout the early hours of the morning and well into the next day, although in modern times people will often visit houses well into the middle of January.

Traditionally, tall dark men are preferred for this ‘first-footing’.

Who knows, maybe it’s because they match well with the likes of high, dark heights of Edinburgh Castle at this time of the year!

Swinging Stonehaven Fireballs In Aberdeenshire

Different areas of Scotland have developed their own Hogamany rituals over the centuries.

Take Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, in the northeast part of the country: There, fireball swinging brings in the new year.

The fireballs are actually ‘balls’ of chicken wire filled with old newspaper, rags, sticks, and other dry flammable material. These balls can be up to a diameter of 2 feet, and each of them is attached to about 3 feet of chain, wire, or rope.

As the Old Town House bell sounds to mark the new year, the balls are set alight and the swingers set off up the main street, swinging the burning balls around their heads as they go. If there are any fireballs still burning at the end of the ceremony, they are thrown into the harbor.

Large crowds of people flock to see this event, like in 2008 when 12,000 were accounted for who were watching this ceremony.

Memories Of Hogmanays Past

Remember the first-footing ceremony described earlier in this article?

Well, in the east coast fishing communities and in Dundee, ‘first-footers’ as they were called once carried a decorated herring.

In Fife, local men marched in torchlight procession to the top of the Lomond Hills as midnight approached.

Over in St Andrews, bakers created special cakes for their Hogmanay celebration (known as ‘Cake Day’) and distributed them to local children.

Glasgow’s Hogamany Today

In the central areas of Scotland and in Glasgow, its largest city, it’s traditional to hold Hogmanay parties that involve singing, dancing, eating of steak pie or stew, storytelling and drink.

These festive parties usually extend into the “wee” hours of the morn on January 1st.

Our New Year’s Wishes To You

Wherever you are in the world, we hope you have a grand New Year – and we here at Quillcards wish you and yours all the best for a lovely, healthy, and peaceful 2014 ahead.

FedEx Panda Express Delivers The Goods

When a male and female Giant Panda arrived at the Edinburgh Zoo here in the city about 15 months ago via their specially chartered “FedEx Panda Express” flight after their nine-hour journey from China there was much fanfare as crowds gathered in the capital to welcome the pair.

After five years of negotiation with the Chinese government involving the China Wildlife Conservation Association (an organization that has been dedicated to giant panda conservation since 1983), the pair arrived from their home at the Giant Panda Conservation and Research Centre in China’s Sichuan Province.

Artwork And A Swanky New Home

On loan to the zoo for 10 years, the bears were accompanied by artwork and messages created by more than 1,000 Chinese children which wished them best of luck in their new home.

And what a new home they have: Consisting of two separate enclosures, the pandas’ new habitat cost a not-too-shabby £250,000.

Seeing ‘Ailuropoda melanoleuca’ At Last

So although my husband David and I are members of the zoo and we visit there regularly, the crowds were off-putting when the pair first arrived and so we had forgotten about the “Ailuropoda melanoleuca” (as their species in known in Latin) twosome.

However last week when the sun miraculously shone here in Edinburgh and the zoo was quiet save for some visiting school classes, we enthusiastically got our tickets to see the pair.

Sweetie and Sunshine

As we learned from the zoo employee who led our tour when we saw the pair, the female was born in August 2003 and she’s named ‘Tian Tian’ in Chinese.

This means ‘Sweetie’ in English, and she is characterized by her trainers as being mischievous by nature and quite the fussy lady when it comes to bamboo.

Tian Tian’s male companion Yang Guang, is only 10 days younger than she is. His name means ‘Sunshine’ in English, and his keepers describe him as even-tempered and gentle.

Some Facts And A Myth

And now to my Q&As to reveal some facts (and one myth) about the world of these gentle giants in general, and about Tian Tian and Yang Guang at the Edinburgh Zoo in particular.

Living Fossils
Q: Just how long has the giant panda been in existence?
A: Based on fossils that have been found, scientists have concluded that giant pandas have existed since the Pleistocene age approximately 3 million years ago – which is why they are referred to as a “living fossil”.

Ancient Folklore
Q: What is the ancient Chinese story that explains how the giant pandas got their distinctive markings?
A: There are several myths about this, and here is a recap of one of them featured on Animal Diversity Web: A young girl who was friendly with these bears died. The pandas felt great sorrow over her death, and so they wore black armbands as a sign of respect. At her funeral, they wept and wept, rubbing their eyes with their arms as their tears ran. The dye from the armbands flowed into their eyes, creating black splodges all around them.

Then the bears hugged one another, the black dye stained their ears, shoulders, hind legs and rumps with this same black color, resulting in the pattern of their black and white coloring that we see to this day.

The Modern Take On Those Blackened Eyes
Q: According to scientists these days, why do pandas have black, ringed patches of fur around their eyes?
A: Modern-day thought is that lucky giant pandas have built-in sunglasses: Those blacked patches encircling their eyes protect their eyes from the sun. (Pretty nifty, eh??).

Natural Habitat In Ancient Asia And China Today
Q: In the wild, where do giant pandas live?
A: Although they once roamed over a wide portion of Asia, they are found now only in a small area in southwestern China in the mountain forests of the central Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu.

Q: Did they ever live anywhere else?
A. During China’s Han dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD), these gentle creatures that were thought to have mystical powers graced the gardens of the emperors. In later centuries they also lived in lowland areas of China too. However in more modern times, due to forest clearings, increased farming, and other developments, now they only live in the mountains.

Q: What sort of forests do giant pandas live in today?
A: Broadleaf and coniferous forests that have a dense layer of bamboo vegetation.

Q: What sort of elevation and general weather conditions are we talking about?
A: The elevation is between 5,000 to 10,000 feet, (1,500 to 3,000 metres) and the temperature runs from cool to cold. These mountainous areas are generally covered in heavy clouds almost all of the time due to the dense mist and heavy rains and snow with about 30 to 40 inches (75 to 100 cm) falling yearly.

Size
Q: How big are giant pandas?
A: They’re about the size of an American black bear, standing between two and three feet tall at the shoulder (on all four legs), and they are four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8m) tall when they are standing on their hind legs.

The males are larger than the females, weighing up to 250 pounds (114kg). Females sometimes reach 220 pounds (100kg).

Diet
Q: What do they eat?
A: Different types of bamboo make up 99% of their diet.

According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, the balance of a giant panda’s diet consists of other grasses and occasional small rodents or musk deer fawns. The National Zoo further explains that in captivity in zoos, giant pandas eat bamboo, sugar cane, rice gruel, a special high-fiber biscuit, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes.

About That Bamboo
Q: About how much bamboo does a giant panda eat every day?
A: They eat about 37 pounds (17kg) of bamboo stems per day, or about 22-31 pounds (10-14kg) of bamboo leaves, or about 88 pounds (40kg) of bamboo shoots.

Q: Since the nutritional level of bamboo is low, why have giant pandas evolved to depend so much on it?
A: Although bamboo is not great in the nutrition department, what is great about it is that it’s green all year ’round and easy to get in the bamboo forests in the giant pandas’ native environment. Importantly, there are fewer food competitors in the bamboo forests than elsewhere. So despite some of its nutritional deficiencies, bamboo does provide a stable and abundant food supply at any time of the year.

Q: It’s wonderful that bamboo is a stable and abundant food supply, but ultimately how do giant pandas get enough nutrition from it for 99% of their diet?
A: According to the Edinburgh Zoo, giant pandas use the following strategies regarding their intake of bamboo to meet their dietary needs: They eat bamboo in huge amounts, and they select the best variety and plant part according to season. For example, when available they take tender parts of the bamboo that have more nutrition and less fiber.

Q: How do giant pandas manage to eat enough to keep up their bulk?
A: They spend most of their day foraging and eating, that’s how they do it. The exact number of hours varies depending on which authority is talking about the subject, but the range is from 10 to 16 hours per day.

Q: From where do giant pandas get the water that they need?
A: Bamboo is a grass whose contents is about 50% water, so in the wild they get most of the water that they need from this grass. In fact, new bamboo shoots are about 90 percent water.

Still, they need more water than what bamboo alone provides. So almost every day in the wild in China, these animals drink fresh water from rivers and streams fed by melting snowfall in high mountain peaks. As noted already in this article, the temperate forests of central China where giant pandas live have about 30 to 40 inches (75 to 100cm) of rain and snow a year.

In captivity, zookeepers provide water for these residents.

Q: Getting back to that bamboo – how does Edinburgh Zoo keep up with all the bamboo that Tian Tian and Yang Guang eat daily?
A: According to Edinburgh Zoo’s website post in November 2011, the pair’s menu includes just a bit under a whopping 20 tons (18,000 kgs) of bamboo per year composed of 25 different varieties. The article stated that one of Europe’s leading horticulture specialist firms, Reiner Winkendick, would provide 85% of the animals’ bamboo requirements for the first three years that the pair are in Edinburgh. Winkendick’s supply is grown in bamboo plantations at a nursery on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

The other 15% has been set to grow at special sites around Edinburgh Zoo itself, and in about 1 3/4 years at the end of the initial three years that the animals are in Edinburgh, the zoo’s home grown supply will be slowly increased.

The pandas’ specific dietary requirements have been challenging for gardening experts at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

Simon Jones, Gardens Manager, fleshed out just what this horticultural challenge entails:

“Our bamboo strategy is the result of more than three-years of research, planning and exhaustive negotiations with suppliers across the UK and Europe.

“Our starting point was to ensure a long-term supply of fresh bamboo that was both sustainable and cost-effective. Because bamboo forms such a fundamental part of the giant pandas’ diet, we also had to guarantee consistency of supply, and to ensure that the bamboo was of the highest possible quality while offering the variety of species required for their highly specialized needs.

“Our German supplier grows exclusively for zoos across Europe and has a proven track-record in the large-scale provision of specialist animal feed – including for giant pandas currently in captivity in Berlin and Vienna.

“But we also wanted to procure a supply nearer to home, which is why we have five growing sites spread across the zoo’s grounds. At any one time, our homegrown supply can provide up to three weeks bamboo, enough to cover any emergency situation. Our on-site nurseries will also form an essential part of the public’s understanding and engagement with the panda experience,” he said.

Getting Pregnant
Q: With Mother’s Day on the horizon this spring, how does it work with female giant pandas – how often can they get pregnant?
A: Female giant pandas enter what is known as ‘estrus’ in Latin (i.e., come into heat when they are ready to mate) only once a year, for an average of two to four days.

Estrus
Q: Now that we’re talking about estrus, what is the derivation of that word?
A: ‘Estrus’ in Latin means ‘frenzy’. It also means ‘gadfly’ in mythology. ‘Estrus’ is derived from a Greek word that means ‘gadfly, breeze, sting, mad impulse’. This all refers back to the gadfly that Hera sent to torment Io, whom Zeus had won in her heifer form.

Q: So at what age can giant pandas get in this ‘frenzy’?
A: In the wild, female giant pandas are sexually mature at 5 ½ to 6 ½ years and males at 6 to 7 years. In captivity, giant pandas mature about a year earlier due to better living conditions and nutrition.

Breeding Season
Q: In what season does this sexual drive hit the giant pandas?
A: Generally right around now during springtime. However, a panda’s estrus is also affected by the latitude and altitude as well as abnormal climate of their habitat.

Living Arrangements And Living With One Another
Q: Speaking of mating, do males and females live together all the time?
A: No, they prefer to live a solitary existence – except during mating.

Q: So what does this mean about their living arrangements at the Edinburgh Zoo?
A: Their £250,000 habitat (mentioned earlier in this article) has adjoining enclosures for the pair. There is a wall between them with just a small section where they can see one another. Their habitat was built this way because if there were a continuous long run of fencing from where they could see one another, they would get nervous.

Q: So if these animals are solitary, where do Edinburgh Zoo experts come into this process?
A: Through behavioral observation, chemical cues and signals plus hormone testing, zoo experts are able to predict when both giant pandas are ready to breed.

Last year Tian Tian came into season on April 2nd. This year, however, zookeepers think she and Yang Guang will mate in March.

Q: How else does Edinburgh Zoo prepare for the mating season?
A: Last year the animals’ web cams were turned off, and the pair met in their indoor enclosures. When my husband David and I were at the zoo last week, the zoo guide explained that in order to prepare the animals for each other, zookeepers lock one of them out of its run and let the other in.

A current online post explains that zookeepers started enclosure swapping at the beginning of this February, so that both of the animals could explore each other’s territory.

This is vital since these normally solitary animals depend very much on scent marking as a means of communicating with one another. Zookeepers keep up and increase this enclosure swapping right until the peak of the mating season.

Also, Yang Guang’s appetite for bamboo is up. This is another sign that the mating season is arriving since added bulk will enhance his body size and keep him in the peak physical shape that is needed during breeding season.

In general, a male giant panda knows that a female is in estrus because her urine and the secretions from her glands are different.

Also, the pair start calling to one another, another behavior that starts around mating time.

Q: Assuming they are not preparing for the next Olympics, why do male giant panda bears do handstands?
A: Along with two classes of children visiting Edinburgh Zoo as we were last week, we were all amazed to see Yang Guang do an elaborate handstand in his living area.

We learned then that this is the male’s way of marking his territory as he urinates.

Yang Guang gave us a perfect demonstration of this, for which he got very high marks indeed from all of us watching him intently. While bracing himself by standing on his hands, he put his hind legs as far up a post as he could manage. Then he urinated in a big arc to mark his presence.

Q: How long can a female giant panda have cubs?
A: Giant pandas reach breeding maturity between four and eight years of age. They give birth between 95 and 160 days after mating, and they may be reproductive until about age 20.

Q: Do these statistics about mating work as nicely as they sound?
A: Unfortunately they do not.

As Erin McCarthy’s article on the Mental Floss website explains, in the wild there is the behavior that scientists hope for with intense competition for each female with the dominant male mating with her several times to safeguard success. This strategy works, and wild female pandas generally give birth every two years.

The reality for breeding pairs in captivity is much more difficult, however: Either the pandas lost interest in mating the natural way, or it seemed like they didn’t know how to go about it correctly. Scientists have theorized that the awkward fumbling that has occurred between captive pandas during mating may be that they were taken away from their mothers at too young an age, or perhaps they have never actually seen mating occur.

And lack of interest might happen because there is lack of competition for the female.

Scientists have experimented with dosing males with Viagra or showing a matched pair panda porn, McCarthy reported. But, as she explains, most of the time they rely on artificial insemination to get the job done.

Q: Back to our pair in Edinburgh Zoo – are zookeepers hopeful they will mate successfully this year?
A: Just three days ago, the Edinburgh Evening News reported although last year’s mating season ended in disappointment because the pair did not hit it off, this year they are hoping things will go smoother so that the first panda cub will be born in the UK.

Last year only Tian Tian’s hormones were tested every day but not Yang Guang’s. This year vets will test him as well to better understand male panda behavior.

Yang Guang’s handstands continue, Tian Tian has been heard calling to her prospective mate, and if these two don’t do the deed during the very short window of opportunity that they have – experts are being brought in from Berlin to perform artificial insemination on Tian Tian as a back-up.

Mother’s Day

So if things go off well between Tian Tian and Yang Guang shortly, maybe Tian Tian will join the ranks of females celebrating Mother’s Day next year, yes?

Just joking — but this allows me the opportunity to wish families a very happy Mother’s Day this spring. To brighten up a mother’s special day, you could send some of Quillcards virtual flowers including these:

We have plenty of other images to choose from our 1,500 or so ecards, many of which will dovetail well with our Mother’s Day greeting.

In fact, speaking of giant panda bears – our two images of Yang Guang are now the most recently added images in our Natural World’s ‘Animals’ category.

And if you like bears of a different nature too, you can show your mother just how much you love her by sending one of our ‘Inspiration’ quotation cards featuring our own trusty teddy here with this fitting quotation:

Here’s hoping that Tian Tian and Yang Guang would also approve of this fellow – even though he’s made from dashing imitation fur, squashy stuffing, and green satin ribbon!