  We review in this paper a series of recent works on properties of singly
heavy baryons, based on a pion mean-field approach. In the limit of an
infinitely heavy-quark mass, the heavy quark inside a heavy baryon can be
regarded as a static color source. In this limit, a heavy baryon can be viewed
as $N_c-1$ valence quarks bound by the pion mean fields which are created
self-consistently by the presence of the $N_c$ valence quarks. We show that
this mean-field approach can successfully describe the masses and the magnetic
moments of the lowest-lying singly heavy baryons, using all the parameters
fixed in the light-baryon sector except for the hyperfine spin-spin
interactions. We also review a recent work on identifying the newly found
excited $\Omega_c$ baryons reported by the LHCb Collaboration. We discuss
possible scenarios to identify them. Finally, we give a future perspective on
this pion mean-field approach.
