Berlin pandas celebrate fourth birthday

To Berlin, where the first giant pandas born in Germany celebrated their fourth birthday on Thursday.

(Put and Paule frolicking on their fourth birthday)

(Courtesy KUTV)

Pit and Paule devoured the ice cream cake studded with apples, carrots and beetroot and covered by a little snow, meticulously prepared by the Berlin Zoo's animal care team.

The pandas are the first to be born in Germany and have been the stars of the zoo.

China regularly loans pandas to zoos internationally as part of its "panda diplomacy."

This, as the zoo prepares to send Pit and Paule back to China -- a journey that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.