Hello world! Five-week-old panda cub smiles and waves from its incubator at Chinese conservation centre

Photographer Dr Katherine Feng took the touching snaps of the young bears

She spent four years at a centre in Sichuan, documenting the life of a panda



This tiny panda looks as if he cannot wait to get out and meet the big wide world as he waves from an incubator at a Chinese conservation centre.

The 37-day-old bear seems to be smiling for the camera after medics weighed, measured, and fed him before returning him to the see-through box.



Photographer Dr Katherine Feng, 65, also captured one chilled out black and white cub lying on his back with his arms behind his head, at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan.

Put it there! Photographer Dr Katherine Feng, also snapped one yawning black and white bear lying on its front, offering a 'high five' with its right paw

Bear-ly a care: This chilled out panda cub cupped his hands behind his head as he relaxed in an incubator Going for a ride: And another is pictured being carried in its mother's mouth just a few hours after it was born

And another is pictured being carried in its mother’s mouth just a few hours after it was born.

Other pictures show a young cub in an incubator waiting to be fed a nutritious formula mixed with a mother panda’s natural milk.

At six days old the cub is still pink with prickly white hair - and looks nothing like a panda.

Dr Feng , a qualified vet from Colorado, United States, spent four years at the centre documenting life in the nursery.

She said: 'If a new born cub is ignored or rejected by its mother, it is cared for in the nursery until such time its mother is able to take care of it.

“I photographed giant pandas of all ages and documented the work of the dedicated staff in their efforts to save them from extinction.

'I made it a point of being present during the birthing season for four years.

'When the cubs are first born they are about the size of a fat hotdog and weigh somewhere around four ounces.

'They are pink with white stubby hair and are not cute at all - they look very similar to large new born mice or rats and not at all like pandas.'

The dark colouring appears around the eyes and ears between 5 to 7 days.

A young cub in an incubator waiting to be fed a nutritious formula mixed with a mother panda's natural milk. At six days old the cub is still pink with prickly white hair - and looks nothing like a panda

Dr Feng said when the cubs are first born they are about the size of a 'fat hotdog' and weigh somewhere around four ounces

But Dr Feng added: 'Personally, I think the cubs start looking cute at about four weeks when they are un-mistakenly baby pandas.

'At that age, they are roly-poly balls of black and white. They are able to move a bit more and are cute to watch.

'No other photographer has ever been granted such access at the CCRCGP.

'It was very tempting to pet and play with the baby pandas.

'But since I was granted permission and access as a documentary photographer, it would not have been appropriate for me to handle the cubs.

'I wanted everyone involved to see me as photographer working on a cooperative effort with the CCRCGP.

'If people saw me handling the cubs, there might be some that would have questioned my true intentions.