The second of the 7 houses in Panda Creek Valley is the River Moon Pavilion – here there are 2 indoor and 6 outdoor yards, and currently there are 9 pandas living in this house. This house is quite identical to the previous Embracing Moon Pavilion. Four of these are 3 years old, so are still living together as young pandas, while the other 5 will be living as solo adults. On my visit across the two days I saw the 4 youngsters living together (first day only), and then two separate adult pandas, one of whom I saw on both days:
Into the final area – the Panda Creek Valley, where there are 7 houses to see giant pandas in, and first up it’s the Embracing Moon Pavilion. Here there are 2 indoor and 6 outdoor yards – the indoor space is only open in the Summer due to the higher temperatures meaning you are unlikely to see pandas outside. On my visit there were only pandas inside in all of the houses in the Panda Creek Valley. The app shows the Embracing Moon Pavilion to house 9 giant pandas currently, 4 of these are 2 years old so will be living together while the other 5 will be living solo. On my visit I saw the same 2 pandas on both days:
The Star Giant Panda Nursery House is the second house open in the Panda Forest Area – there are 4 indoor enclosures and 8 outdoor yards, so plenty of pandas to potentially see here! There are also nursery facilities, so this is an area birth and cub-rearing. When I was there I didn’t see any mums with cubs, but I did see some 2023-born cubs which I was very happy about, and of course also some adult pandas, all in the indoor enclosures. In this house the inside is set up with shops and a small cafe, with a very large and spacious area to view the indoor enclosures which are set out very separately – this gives plenty of viewing space which will be great on crowded days. When I was there it was pretty quiet, there were lots of other people viewing the pandas, but I had no problems getting a good spot to see the pandas. The indoor enclosures here are all build into the ground, so you are looking down on the pandas into their indoor spaces to see them through glass – this is quite different to all the other houses at the base, but comparable to the indoor enclosure at Ouwehands Dierenpark for example.
Also in the Starry Sky Pavilion is a large central yard/indoor enclosure which housed 5 cubs when I visited – for me it’s one of the best things seeing groups of young ones together, and seeing these 5 was a highlight of my trip. There weren’t name signs up for all of the pandas here – inside there was just one name, Zhi Yu 徵羽, then outside I saw another two names, Bei Chen 北辰 and Wen Jing 文静, through the app I see the final pandas here are Jia Xin 家欣 and Jiao Yi 娇毅. All of them were born in 2022, making them almost 2 years old in these photos. I’m a bit sad I missed them outside, but it was definitely too hot by the time I got to this area. The yards look really nice and also huge in this area so hopefully I can see pandas in them next time! These 5 live in the middle indoor enclosure in this pavilion, and it’s a huge space for them – really perfect for young playful and adventurous pandas^ They have plenty of climbing frame options and lots of different enrichment items to choose from – of course, they mostly wanted the same one as each other XD
The highlight of these cubs has to be the most recognisable of the 5, Bei Chen! He just has such a fluffy round face with such an endearing look, so so adorable^ His mum is of course Bei Chuan 北川, but he also has a twin, Bei Xia who I already posted about and also got lots of cute pictures of. His looks very much come from his mum. She was wild-born, so genetically these are very valuable cubs for the captive population.
In many pictures online that I’ve seen of Jiao Yi he has a very cute little tuft of fur on top of his head – I didn’t get a clear photo of any panda like that, so I think I didn’t see him/he spent the time sleeping. I also can’t see much information online about Wen Jing to be able to identify her – only that she is a female cub – or about Zhi Yu other than he is a male cub.
Jia Xin is also a female and is described to have a horizontal black mark across her nose, and a mole on her forehead. Now I can’t see a mole on any of these pandas (but have on others, so I know what to look for), but I think she is one of the 3 in the below photos where they are eating at the rocky section at the front of the enclosure. She is said to have good climbing skills – perhaps she is the panda who took a long stick of bamboo and climbed up high to eat it!
