Giant panda Mei Lan celebrates her second birthday

It was her birthday, and 2-year-old Zoo Atlanta giant panda Mei Lan was the perfect expression of adorable royalty on all fours Saturday. It was before noon and she was asleep.

The world, meantime, was doing its job, gathering around her pen to adore her for just being who she is — a young, out-of-work, bamboo-eating machine that is endangered in the wild and impossibly cute in captivity.

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Elissa Eubanks/eeubanks@ajc.com

At 11:30, Zoo Atlanta staff woke 2-year-old Mei Lan for her birthday celebration, which included a tiered cake made of ice and fruit. Now weighing close to 115 pounds, Mei Lan still received a collective ‘Awwwwww!’ from the hundreds of well-wishers who waited for her appearance.

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“I drove down from Washington, D.C., just for this!” said Cathryn Wanders, 41, waiting outside the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Giant Panda Conservation Center for Mei Lan’s official party and cake presentation (made of ice, with fruit, and unlit bamboo candles).

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Wanders, who described herself as a “Panda nut,” was among friends. The gathering of hundreds of people of all ages — parents, grandparents, kids from infants to teens — was not for the faint of obsession.

Andrea Rafferty, 53, has been a member of the pandarazzi since Zoo Atlanta hooked up its Internet pandacam shortly after the cub was born.

“I just think they’re sweet and fascinating,” said Rafferty. “I watch the pandacam all the time. I’m one of the crazies.”

Mei Lan’s mother, Lun Lun, was off exhibit Saturday taking care of her second cub, an unnamed male born about a week ago. The cub is one of 13 pandas in four American zoos — Atlanta, San Diego, Washington and Memphis. (Zoo officials said Saturday that mom and cub are doing fine.)

Dad, Yang Yang, was out, staying busy for the hundreds of well-wishers who pressed close to his pen, taking photographs as he dozed, munched on bamboo, rolled around, and even looked photogenic scratching himself with a hind leg.

At tables, scores of kids colored in outlined drawings of Mei Lan, and, with parents and grandparents, munched on black-and-white iced cookies in the shape of a panda head.

At 11:30, Mei Lan was roused and released into a pen where zoo staff had placed a stash of fresh bamboo and her tiered birthday cake. It would take about 30 minutes before she finished off a snack of bamboo and started munching the cake.

Not a problem. She was a royal among the besotted. All she had to do was amble into view, and the crowd, almost in unison, said all they could say.

“Awwwwwwwwwww!”