The first mum with a cub that I saw in the Star Nursery was Yi Yun 怡云 and her cub, or I should say one of her cubs – she had twins in 2024, however whenever I was at the yard I only saw one cub at a time. So either the other cub was out but just not visible, or she is just having one cub at a time. I’m also not sure if I saw the same cub at all my visits to the yard or if I did actually see both!

On the first day of my visit, both mum and cub were more chilled, it was all about the post-lunch nap as I didn’t make it to this area until after lunch time. On the second day I had prioritised getting to this area before lunch and that was really perfect because I saw some great moments of activity. When I first got there the keeper was in doing some cleaning but was then joined by a few other staff members, either a tree had fallen or had been cut down and they were moving it – of course the cub wanted to check out what was going on so followed them over and wanted to play on the tree! Absolutely adorable, and seeing the cub interacting with the keepers was also very cute. The keeper then had a bit of a task trying to leave as the baby just wanted to follow her! But shortly after Yi Yun was let back in and baby went to play/bother her while she enjoyed some bamboo. I went back a bit later and baby was very active, climbing on different height logs and climbing up a tree, these were very popular moments with lots of visitors watching and cheering when she didn’t fall over^ At my next stop by, Yi Yun was trying to have a rest but someone just wanted to play with her – eventually she settled down and they took a nap together. On my final stop by of the day baby was awake again and trying out some bamboo, small pieces of course, but showing an interest in it – very cute =)

Yi Yun is another interesting panda, when I saw her mother is listed as Fei Fei I could only think of the Fei Fei I saw in Dujiangyan – but that is correct, Yi Yun is a CCRCGP panda and is another one who has been swapped to Chengdu Base, and clearly it was a good move as she has already had a successful breeding season. Another fun fact, on her sign it highlights her ‘white socks’, I think perhaps this was more prominent when she was a cub, but this is something she has passed on to at least one of her cubs because just look at those little white toesies on the cub in some of the pictures, just adorable^