Onto the final area of pandas at the Dujiangyan Panda Base, it’s the Diequan Garden which is the furthest-most area at the back of the base. Here the map shows 9 yards, but actually 3 are almost completely unable to be viewed (although I did spot a panda in 2 of them from super far away, just not entirely sure who they were) – so 6 yards to see, with a total of 11 pandas across them. 2 yards were mothers with 2023-born cubs, 2 yards were pairs of sub-adult pandas, and 2 yards were solo pandas. First up in this post, the solo pandas:

The final pandas I saw at the Shuangnan Gardens area of the Dujiangyan Base I actually didn’t know who they were at first because here you can’t access their sign at the front of the yard, you can only view at the side. Luckily I met a Singaporean fan (and friend of the fans I met in Singapore) at Le Le and she let me know the names of all the pandas I was missing – this mama and her cubs are Pan Wang 潘旺 and 2023-born twins, Chun Ye 春野 and Qiu Ye 秋野, who are (possibly) a female and male pair.

So happy to see Su Lin 苏琳 and her 2023-born twins again – last year I saw them at the Wolong Shenshuping Base and now there are living in Dujiangyan, what a great surprise^ This trio are living in the right-side yard at the Shuangnan Garden area and I saw a lot of them on my visit. I got there just when the keeper was putting out bamboo so it was the perfect time. I waited and soon Su Lin came out and the babies followed behind to get the bamboo. It was great to see a lot of Su Lin herself because I didn’t see much of her last year. The babies of course are adorable, they spent a lot of time eating and later I saw one climbing up and down trees, very reminiscent of seeing them last year when they were always up a tree! In mid-afternoon one of the cubs was wrestling with Su Lin (who I think wanted some alone time!), which was cute, and at the end of the day I popped in as I was on my way out and the trio was all napping after their bamboo feast. I had such a great time watching this family.

The cubs now of course also have names – they are both male and are called Zi Su 紫苏 and Zi Lin 紫林, and were born on the 4th and 5th of July 2023 at the Wolong Shenshuping Base.