With the knowledge that the Belgian-born cubs were living at Bifengxia after moving back to China in December 2024, I was pretty set on adding the Bifengxia Base into my plan. Now this could have ended like my trip last year (to see Yang Guang and Tian Tian, who were taken off show shortly before I got there), but I really wanted to give it a try – and that paid off! The trio were living in the White Bear Ground area in the yards typically used for quarantining, each in their own yards – the twins were separated as they have reached an age where this would typically happen anyway. Sadly I didn’t see oldest ‘cub’ (for he’s now 8 years old!) Tian Bao 天宝, the door in his house was always closed and I didn’t see him in the yard at all, and there was no bamboo out, hinting that he wasn’t going to be out that day. Luckily after a lot of waiting and patience, Bao Di 宝弟 and Bao Mei 宝妹 both came outside and really made my day.
I’ve seen these two twice before, once when they were tiny babies in January 2020 and again in October 2022 when they were quite big cubbies^
Bao Di
It’s Bao Di 宝弟! This is the male twin and the twin that I saw the most on my visit. When I first got there and this was where I headed immediately I was so excited to see him outside. He was lounging on the flat section at the bottom of the yard enjoying some bamboo – and I was the only person there to see it! Super quiet and a great viewing experience. It was quite hard to see here as I was looking over both a stone wall and a planted wall of bamboo, but one of the benefits of being tall – just could have done with an extra foot of height for the perfect angle XD I stayed here for a little bit then went to try and see Bao Mei, but the guard was saying ‘no pandas’ when I tried to take the path round to her viewing. Annoyingly (with myself) I didn’t go back down to Bao Di, I headed on to see other pandas, but came back an hour or so later. Then I could hear Bao Di enjoying more bamboo inside – I waited a long time to see if he might come out, but he didn’t. In the afternoon I planted myself at the top pathway at the back of the yard and just waited – think the security guards thought I was crazy (I know I am =D) looking at nothing! But the patience paid off and eventually success with seeing Bao Di again. He was quite active going out and in, but he stayed close to the front section of the yard and didn’t explore further up the hill on my visit. The keepers were checking on both twins, and they had him sit up on his back legs and took some photos, then he got a treat. He walked around quite a bit until the keepers left, probably just in case there was another treat! He also dragged some bamboo outside that had been inside, and ate it outside which was cute to see – Bao Mei also did the same^ The cutest moment however was seeing Bao Di look through the mesh gate between his and Bao Mei‘s yard and I got a photo (albeit not a great one) of the two of them ‘together’ – sadly Bao Mei didn’t go look through the gate at him, but it was still super cute.
Bao Mei
And of course, then I saw Bao Mei 宝妹! Her yard was trickier to see, you can only view it from the walkway at the top of the hill at the back of the yard, so she was pretty far away. She was mostly hanging out at the flat bottom section near the house, but that was really at the reach of my lens, so the pictures aren’t great but I’m still happy with them. She was a bit less keen to come outside than Bao Di, but she did eventually make an afternoon appearance. It was brief at first, she just sat outside the door and lay down. But later, when the keepers appeared she was very keen to see them and get her apple treat! She then spent a lot of time dragging her bamboo outside and sat down to enjoy it – almost in a back to the audience position, but luckily I managed to get her side.
In all the time I was viewing her on the pathway, the only other people around were the security guards so it was such a peaceful viewing experience and I had the whole view to myself. While the path around the back of the yard was quite long, there was only a small space that was good for getting pictures so I’m quite glad I had it to myself.
Such a sweet girl and I hope I get to see her again some time^
