Next up in the Panda Reception Hall area is the second of 4 pavilions, the Reflecting Sun Pavilion, which has the same set up as the Spring Sun Pavilion with two indoor viewing spaces and then outdoor yards. Here I also didn’t see every panda that was living in this pavilion, but I did see 5 different ones – currently there are 6 listed as living here on the app. On the first day I saw 3 pandas, one solo and one female pair although I didn’t get any good photos of the pair (Run Yue 润玥 and Ai Jiu 艾玖, born in 2020). On the second day I saw two different solo pandas, again one I didn’t get very good pictures from (Cheng Shi 成实, born in 2016 and actually was one of the first cubs I ever saw!). So I saw almost everyone here!

When walking from the original section of the base to the new section, the Panda Reception Hall area is the first you will come to, and within that the Spring Sun Pavilion is the first panda house you will see of the 4 houses in this section. All 4 of the pavilions have inside and outside viewing for the pandas, but on my visit all the pandas were kept inside due to the high temperatures. Us humans are all outside for all the viewing and because it’s all glass on the pandas inside homes, there were sometimes difficulties in seeing with reflections. This also meant that I didn’t see all the pandas living in each pavilion – they rotate the use of the inside areas, so some pandas were in off-show areas due to the outside yards not being in use. So in some areas I saw different pandas on both days, and some I saw the same pandas. In the Spring Sun Pavilion I happened to see a trio of young ones on both days, and then the same sub-adult male on both days – currently on the app there are 6 pandas listed for this pavilion, so I potentially didn’t see 2 of them (perhaps they weren’t living in this pavilion on my trip however).

Next up is the only panda that I saw in the No6 Villa, Yun Wu 韵武. He was born in 2018, making him almost 6 years old on my visit – it’s likely I saw him in 2018 in the kindergarten on my trip that year. There’s not much information about him online at all, but he has a twin sister, Yun Wen, and there are a lot of cute videos online of them and their peers as little cubs which are super sweet. What I really wanted to share in these photos is the really nice example of scent marking in the final two photos – even though it was towards the end of May, it’s still the last part of the breeding season, and while at 6 he may not be fully mature, he’s clearly showing starting signs of maturity. I’ve never been able to get good pictures of a male scent marking/hand standing and peeing on a tree before, so this is exciting for the panda reproductive scientist in me!

I only saw one panda in the No5 Villa and that was Bao Mei 宝妹 – not to be mistaken with the Bao Mei born (and at the time of my visit) and living at Pairi Daiza, but one born in China. Funnily enough she was also born in 2019 and also has a twin brother (Bao Ge 宝哥, while the Belgian brother is Bao Di). Having lived in the kindergarten in that year, it’s very possible that her and her twin were cubs that I saw on my 2019 trip, so it’s special to think I may be seeing her again. What is special about Bao Mei is that she is the cub of a born-overseas panda – her mother is Po, also known as A Bao 阿宝 or Bao Lan 宝兰, who was born at Zoo Atlanta in 2010 and travelled to China in 2014. Bao Mei and Bao Ge were her first pregnancy, and are the heaviest twins born on record (both being over 200g at birth). One thing that was difficult in finding information is that a male panda born in Zoo Madrid in 2010 also received the same Po/A Bao naming, and actually female Po was originally thought to be male. Anyway, Bao Mei was incredibly cute when I saw her, initially there were almost no people at her yard and I was alone while seeing her sitting high on platforms above the ground. She then got up and walked along to a new spot with a fresh pile of bamboo and at that time more people could see her and she had quite a crowd watching her. As a youngster, her and twin Bao Ge were in a trio with Jin Bao 金宝 (who I later saw, photos to come!) and they were known as ‘the three treasures’. In December 2023 she was moved on to her current solo-yard where her neighbours are Hua Hua and He Ye. She is definitely a particularly cute panda, and very photogenic, I especially like the first photo of her here: