The final pandas to share about from the Dujiangyan Base – Rui Rui 蕊蕊 and her 2023-born cub Zi Rui 紫蕊 and her surrogate 2023-born cub Ao Ke 傲客. Ao Ke‘s mum is Xian Xian 贤贤, she is currently raising his twin Ao Ran 傲然 in one of the wild-training habitats, so Rui Rui seamlessly took over the care of her second twin and this adorable trio are now enjoying life in the Diequan Garden area of the Dujiangyan Base. I saw these three last year at Wolong Shenshuping and honestly loved watching them, and loved watching them again on this trip – and clearly most other visitors agreed as they were by far the most popular pandas.

The three of them were out pretty much all day, and there was just about always something going on to see – walking around, eating, playing separately, playing together, playing with bamboo, climbing the frames, climbing a tree, and even attempting to climb a tree with a plastic collar not intended for climbing! So much to see and so many cute photos^ When I got there, the cubs were hanging around the house while Rui Rui was walking in and out, and every so often she would pick a cub and give them some attention, then move on. She did make an attempt to stop the cubs trying to climb the plastic-covered trees, but they were very adamant that they wanted to try! Lots and lots of cute pictures. Loved getting to see one of the cubs, I’m assuming adventurous Zi Rui, taking a stick of bamboo and scaling a tree carefully with it and proudly getting to the ‘seat’ at the top. She looked delighted with herself^

They were very popular and I hope I get to see the trio again, or at least perhaps the cubs still living together.

The penultimate pandas of Dujiangyan Base for this trip, it’s Xin Xin 鑫鑫 and her 2023-born female cub Qing Ling 青灵 (who was the only cub from that year who I already saw on my trip to have been given a name)! I saw this duo on my trip last year – they were living at Wolong Shenshuping at the time in the Inner Ring 3 area. Qing Ling is an older cub from that year, with a May birthday, and she definitely comes across as a confident young panda, and I saw that both on my last trip and this trip. She definitely enjoys living in this yard, there’s plenty of terrain to explore and climbing to be done – like my photos last time, I got some super cute ones of her up trees this time!

This time I got to see more of Xin Xin herself too which was nice, she seemed like a pretty chilled mum and gave Qing Ling a good level of freedom – but definitely let her baby know who was boss when she wanted to. There was no willing to share stems of bamboo in this yard! One very sweet moment to see was Xin Xin feeding Qing Ling up on one of the high platforms in the yard, there were so many people around as well and it was a very special thing to see for an older cub and I am so pleased I got some lovely photos of the moment.

Next up, I was lucky to get to see Le Le 叻叻 and Qing Zai 青仔 still living together on my visit – they were both born in 2021, making them now 3.5 years old. They are a little young for sexually maturing, but after my visit photos and videos came out showing them not getting along as well anymore and fighting a bit, so the base has now separated them. I’m so glad I saw them together still after having seen them with Qing Bao 青宝 (who now lives in Washington DC) last year – and when I went they were still very friendly to each other!

Le Le is still very popular with lots of people stopping by to see him – I too spent quite a bit of time at the yard. When I first got there it was still cleaning time, and when I came back around the bamboo had been laid out and the two were both enjoying breakfast. That didn’t last long and then they both laid down to sleep the morning away! I came back a few hours later and they were still sleeping, but I got there at perfect time and they both started stirring and went inside. The keepers refreshed the bamboo and both then came out for a quick drink of water before settling down to eat again – there was a lot of eating going on here! The 4PM feed was the best feeding time because this is when the bamboo shoots come out. These were placed on the swinging platform in the middle of the yard and the two sat next to it chowing down on the goods! Once they were all done, one of the pandas even climbed on up to the swing just to double check they really were all gone, so so cute^

Second up in the Diequan Garden area, one of the pairs of subadult pandas, it’s Bao Yuan 宝元 and Mao Mao 茅茅. A very cutie pair of 2021-born pandas living in a yard that, to be honest, I hadn’t really noticed or seen before. It’s also quite different to the other yards at this base in particular because the only viewing here is completely through glass, whereas all the other yards are viewed glass-free. However, I had almost no issues with reflections on the glass and was still able to get lots of great pictures of this pair!