The Starry Sky Pavilion is one of the open houses in the Panda Forest Area, and has a few returned pandas who were born in Zoo Atlanta, so it was very appropriate that I wore my Zoo Atlanta panda t-shirt to visit^ The Starry Sky Pavilion has 3 indoor enclosures and 6 outdoor yards for pandas – I saw pandas in all of the inside spaces on my visit. The largest of the 3 is in the middle, with the outer ones being slightly smaller but equal in size and these were where individual pandas were housed. On the first day of my visit I saw Xi Lan 喜兰 in the first enclosure, but on the second day this was Da Mao 大毛, a different panda, and on both days I saw Mei Lan 美兰 in the third enclosure. So there were some pandas living in this pavilion that I didn’t see (there are 10 pandas listed as living in this pavilion). I found taking pictures quite tricky in this pavilion because of the light, it’s a very bright house with windows in the walls and also the roof is mostly glass (don’t remember if it was clear or frosted, but lots of light coming through), paired with the reflections on the glass of the enclosures – it was a tricky one, so some of the lighting might differ from picture to picture.
Xi Lan 喜兰
Xi Lan 喜兰 was born at Zoo Atlanta in 2008, the second cub to be born to Lun Lun 伦伦 and Yang Yang 洋洋. He travelled to China in 2014 and has been living at the Chengdu Panda Base since – it’s possible I’ve seen him on a previous trip, but I don’t remember at all! He was very active when I saw him, making use of the full space of his enclosure. All of the climbing frames in the pavilion seemed to be themed on sports, and Xi Lan‘s seemed to be themed to gymnastics/the parallel bars – I didn’t see him climbing on them, perhaps at 16 he’s not so much into the same play, but I appreciate the theming! He did make use of one log to sit on to enjoy some bamboo which I thought was very cute the way he was sitting. He was on show for most of the time I was there – they did take him to the back while replenishing the bamboo shoots at one point, but this was for less than 5 minutes and he was keen to get back out to his new snacks^
Mei Lan 美兰
Mei Lan 美兰 was born at Zoo Atlanta in 2006, the first cub to be born to Lun Lun and Yang Yang. He travelled to China in 2010 and has been living at the Chengdu Panda Base since – I think I’ve seen him on previous trips to the base, but I’m not sure. Interestingly I’ve seen online that he went to Beijing Zoo in October 2017, having visited in November 2017 I may have seen him there and not here at the Chengdu Base. He has been a very successful member of the breeding programme, his name is listed as the father on quite a number of pandas, with popular cubs including Cheng Lang (lightest born cub to ever survive, now living at Panda Valley) and of course Meng Lan, the mischievous panda who has made escape attempts at Beijing Zoo! Mei Lan was active on my visit, making good use of his space – his frames include a basketball-like set up (including a ball!), and also a diving board over the pool, now I didn’t see him get onto the board, but he did walk around the parts holding up the board. I seem to have always gotten there after he had been eating as I didn’t see him eat, but he had plenty of bamboo and seems to have thoroughly enjoyed all those shoots that he had! The best moment was seeing him walk around the pool then just go ahead and have a sit down in the water – then he walked off with a very wet rear end^
