Sichuan Panda Watching

Giant Panda found spring 2024 and a Red Panda from autumn 2023

Both Red and Giant Panda are elusive difficult to see animals. This is partly because of the difficult to access habitat in which they live, but also because of their shy, mostly solitary, and reclusive lifestyles.

Red Panda is the easiest of the two animals, especially during autumn, when animals readily partake in daytime feeding (both morning and afternoon) on berry bushes and trees. The Red Panda is a great climber and at least 90% of our sightings come from seeing animals up trees. On the ground, especially in bamboo habitat, it can be difficult to spot. It also sleeps in trees, often on broad branches in large conifers, but when motionless it's also difficult to find, since its colouration matches well to some of the richly coloured mosses found on the older mature trees. We use high powered spotting scopes to scan likely trees but even though we are sometimes lucky in seeing a sleeping animal its usually branch movement caused by active animals that’s the big give away to their presence. Thermal imagers can also be useful, but being well insulated, often located in a tangle of branches, its can be difficult to determine the exact origin and whereabouts of a heat source. Red Panda usually moves at a steady conservative pace, almost always singly and always silently, unlike the noisy, quick moving macaque troops that inhabit the same forests. They will readily climb large trees probably seeking out insects, larvae, bird nests and any edible vegetable matter. However, during autumn months our successful observation rate soars when we readily find daytime animals in open easy to view situation, climbing trees and shrubs in search of berries. They particularly like a type of berry that resembles a hip, and once you know where these trees are found the search for Red Pandas becomes a lot easier. We also suspect some sleepy, lazy, wobbly behaving Red Pandas may get a little tipsy from eating fermented, alcoholic fruit – a situation that has been observed in other fruit eating species. A good berry season can last from the end of September into the start of the new year.

It has been suggested that there are two species of Red Panda - Chinese and, west of the himalayas, the Himalayan Red Panda. These subspescies have distinct morphological differences, while genetic analysis shows they seperated around 250,000 years ago. 

Red Pandas how they are often seen - berry feeding or sleeping up a tree. However, sometimes you get an enexpected sighting.

Giant Panda are obviously a lot more difficult to find, partly because of their lower density, but also because of their preferred feeding locations in deep dense bamboo, often found on extremely steep sided slopes. The best opportunities to see an animal comes from either finding one up a tree or when they cross through an open area. Because the population density is so low, it can be a good tactic to view with a 20X scope from sites giving a broad vista. Large areas must viewed to pick up these animals - scanning suitable habitat from a distance that can exceed one kilometre. During trips where wild Giant Panda is the focus animal, we have given at least 3 days for the scanning and have often spent all daylight hours performing this task. Even then you have to be very lucky, and the time watching an animal in the open can be very brief. However, even as a long and often boring experience it's certainly a lot easier than trying to cover ground inside bamboo terrain, where visibility is very limited, your movement often unavoidably noisy and pace through the terrain usually slow and laboured , your movement often unavoidably noisy and pace through the terrain usually slow. Also remember that most panda habitat is located in out of bounds reserve area, where that scope lets you view from public permitted areas. The best seasons for Giant Panda watching are winter, spring and autumn.

Since 2019 we have been involved in several trips that have successfully found Giant Panda

First photo gives an idea of what kind of distances we most commonly find Giant Panda. The group watching that same Panda. Fresh Giant Panda skat containing undigested wood matter is easy to Identify.