Back to see the pandas at Zoo Berlin! I never got to see the first-born twins of Germany while they were still living at the Zoo (but I’ve been lucky to see them in China), which was a bit sad, so I was keen to make sure I got to see the second-born twins of Germany while they were still cubs! Honestly such a great decision and we (my mum and I) had a fantastic weekend trip at Zoo Berlin! You can check out my 2018-2020 trip photos in my first post on pandas at Zoo Berlin *here*
We travelled over to mainland Europe for a week in May, and started off in Berlin – we had 2 full days to spend at the zoo and we really made the most of that. My mum had also come along on my last trip in January 2020 (I had thought the cubs would be on show by then, but they really kept them in the nursery off show for a long time!) and because we were pretty much guaranteed to see babies this time, she was also keen to come along =) Not much has changed at the zoo in relation to pandas – they’re still living in the same panda house, they still have the same ‘Panda Garden’ banners and posters up outside and around the zoo, there’s just some different climbing structures for the pandas to enjoy^ But I have a better camera this time around to get much better pictures – on my previous 3 visits, I have seen male Jiao Qing every time, but I’ve only seen female Meng Meng on 1 of those visits so I have only a handful of photos of her and they weren’t good enough to post last time!
The gift shop didn’t have a lot of specific panda merch for the pandas here, there were a few quite general panda items, but I did pick up this very nice plate with both pandas and ‘Zoo Berlin‘ on it, and got a magnet of the first-born twins with Meng Meng. What was quite funny is that while we were in the shop there was a woman with her two little girls and the girls were looking at toys while mum was at another section, she called out to them to come over to her, and their names were Leni and Lotti – the German names of these second-born twins, what a coincidence!
Jiao Qing 娇庆
It’s papa panda Jiao Qing 娇庆! This is now the 4th time I’ve seen him and he’s just as cute and handsome as the first^ He’s now 15 years old, looking back he was practically a baby when I saw him for the first time in 2018! He’s got a lovely friendly face, and he’s a big boy – he spent 75% of the 2 days that we were there sitting in the middle of a big pile of bamboo and enjoying it all! The other time was 5% walking around, 5% having a brief look outside and 15% sleeping XD He was in such a big pile of bamboo that it was quite tricky to get clear photos of him because he was completely surrounded, or he was sitting with his back to the window. He was awake for the mornings, tended to take an early afternoon nap, then would be ready for another round of bamboo around 3PM or so. While he did walk outside a few times, this was very brief and he was just having a quick look then would run inside again, so he was really just inside – it was January and February when I saw him outside on previous visits, so perhaps he prefers the cold Winter months for outdoor time. The only thing I dislike about the inside space here is that they’re always misting it, and it really covers a lot of the space, making getting photos difficult sometimes.
Meng Meng 梦梦 with Meng Tian 梦甜 (Lotti) and Meng Hao 梦好 (Leni)
Not only did we get an amazing experience viewing the 9-month old twins, I finally had a great experience seeing mama Meng Meng 梦梦! When we first got to the pandas it was so exciting, one cub was sitting right up at the glass and the other was outside, and then a few moments later Meng Meng appeared, honestly couldn’t have asked for a better start to the day. Having had some more research and experience, I believe Lotti/Meng Tian is the cub who was outside, and Leni/Meng Hao was the cub who was inside – however just a best guess based on their growing personalities! I have to say that overall, they were pretty active for most of the 2 days of our visit, which was fantastic to see. While the twins were out on show pretty much the whole time, Meng Meng was a little more reserved, she came and went from the show room to the back den quite a few times, but did sit to eat bamboo and one of the cubs went to play with her (so cute^), and incredibly she also went outside on both days (one briefly, one less briefly XD) which was amazing to see and she really got pretty close as well! On the second day Meng Meng was a bit more interactive with the cubs, one must have been being a bit naughty and she decided to drag them across the floor a few times – sometimes it looked like the cub was having fun, other times it went straight back to where it originally had been. The twins spent time separately but were also interacting together – although this was usually one wanting to steal her sisters preferred sleeping spot and vice versa, there was just about space for both on the ledge, but it was a squeeze. The best moments of the days were at the end of the day when it was panda cub bed time – on these two days it was around 4:15-4:30PM, Meng Meng was already in the back and the keepers must have been calling the cubs in to no avail, so a keeper went in and carried each cub into the back! It was one of the most adorable panda cub moments I’ve ever seen and I was in a perfect spot to see and take a video =)
