What's the Best Time/Seasons to see Pandas in the Wild?

We have talked with different people who live near the panda habitats and who work as panda guides. The experience we have is sometimes even within themselves there are disagreement on the best season,and the best locations. But overall we draw a good picture as a conclusion of the good seasons to see/take photos of pandas in the wild.

The best seasons to see pandas in the wild is from late March to early June, and from late November to mid Jan in winter. The best of the best seasons is from late March to mid April (the mating season). From late June to early September is the mosoon seasno and the forest are the most lush in this season. From late November to early Jan is believed to be another good season due to less leafy trees making the visibility easer.

Spring

If you want to plan for late March then prepare for cold and wet conditions when snow is still possible and some years more snow and you may need to prepare more for the low temperature as cold as around 0-5C. The prime mating season is from around 28 Mar to 15 Apr when there is a good chance you will hear pandas mating noises when searching by the right locations. This is also the season with high chance of pandas climbing in trees. Although there is also good chance you may only hear the pandas but may not be able to see one, let alone taking a good photo of one. Then if you are a committed wildlife photographer and wish to take good photos of pandas in the wild then a good time is from late April to late May when cubs(1-2 year olds) start to climb trees and the snow has all melted but may need to plan even longer time. Although considering the proportion of the teenage pandas among the total panda population is low, the chance of seeing a panda climbing trees is still much lower than during mating season even though by then there are still snow on the mountain but melting.

Pandas are senstitive to temperature. They have a higher tolerance of cold conditions than hot conditions. Therefore in summer they move higher for cooler conditions. In winter pandas in the wild make relatively shorter trips because it's cold and in winter pandas make more frequent trips to water source for drinking as the climate is drier and the bamboos are also drier providing less water for pandas. Late september to early November has usually good weather but the color of trees start to change color on the mountains, this may hinder the spotting of pandas in the wild because the mountains are too colorful.

Our conclusion comes to 3 windows of good season for wild pandas: A. late March to early April; B, early May to mid May; C, early/mid December.

Snow stays as Late as April

Please note, you may actually go to search for pandas in the wild all year round as pandas don't hibernate and don't have a big difference in behaviors in different seasons overall. Above information is what we have from local panda guides and villagers and also considering the weather window and right temperature for humans(can't be too cold, too hot, too wet, too much snow), accessibility by humans (too much snow will slow people down, too wet will bring big risk on health and pace), availability on guides(in general local peoples' working seasons are July, August, October and November). The later into May/June the warmer/wetter it is going to be. The raining season is from June to September. The busy tourist season (by near most panda places) is July, August, October and November.The Snow season is from Fenbruary to April.

Sunrise by Camp