A young grizzly called Storm wasn’t prepared for an aggressive sandhill crane when she got too close to the crane’s nesting site.
Drawing itself up to its full height, the crane towered over Storm with its wings spread wide in a display of aggression during their close encounter on Saturday in Yellowstone National Park.
Storm made a couple of pensive moves toward the crane, but the gangly bird was having none of it. Eventually, the baffled grizzly had enough and scrambled away.
Wildlife watcher and photographer Linda Ghent captured video of an encounter that typically would end very badly for the crane.
“What cracked me up was the crane’s little hop at the end. That little victory dance,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
Upcoming Famous Grizzly
Storm belongs to a famous Yellowstone grizzly lineage. She’s the daughter of Snow, one of the park’s most visible bears.
And Snow in turn is the daughter of Raspberry, likely Yellowstone’s most famous grizzly.
Raspberry has been missing for about a year and is feared by many of her fans to have died.
At age 2 last year, Storm split from Snow, who is now 3 and newly out on her own.
Ghent said that the bear’s youth and inexperience probably played in the crane’s favor during the encounter.
‘Sugarplum Fairy Dance’
Ghent said she spotted Storm coming down off a slope on Saturday and settled in from a safe distance for what she assumed was going to be a typical grizzly-watching session.
However, the bear apparently got just too close for comfort to the crane’s nesting site, and the bird was all business as it came at Storm.
“They did their little ‘Sugarplum Fairy’ dance," Ghent said, referencing the familiar passage from Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic “The Nutcracker Suite.”
Ghent added that she didn’t see any crane hatchlings, which are called colts.
They’re so named because they have the ability to stand up and run almost immediately after hatching.
Birds Are Brave, Not Suicidal
Some bird experts told Cowboy State Daily that they weren’t particularly surprised that a sandhill crane stood up to a grizzly.
Nesting cranes are nothing to trifle with, said Chris Helzer, the director of science and stewardship for The Nature Conservancy of Nebraska.
“Based on size, it looks like this was a fairly young bear (in the video), but sandhill cranes are well known for being strong and courageous defenders of their nests against predators of many sizes,” he said.
“The wing spreading and aggressiveness seems in line with other footage I’ve seen,” he added.
While they’ll fiercely defend their nests, cranes and other birds aren’t suicidal about it, Helzer said.
“There are plenty of other birds who show similar fearlessness against predators — small songbirds that mob crows or hawks, for example,” he said. "The size disparity in those cases is much bigger than the crane/bear example.
“The instinct to protect their progeny is strong, though they’ll rarely die in the defense of the nest. If they can’t drive the threat off, they’ll usually abandon the nest and try again,” Helzer added.
‘I’d Put My Money On The Crane’
Courtney Rudd, a migratory bird and wetland biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said large birds like cranes are nothing to trifle with.
“The video is exactly how I would expect a sandhill crane to react to a threat at the nest,” she said. "Cranes and trumpeter swans are especially invested in their clutches/broods, and I'd put my money on the crane."
Birdwatcher and crane aficionado Gayle Irwin of Casper said she’s seen cranes stand up to animals many times their size.
“I watched a pair of sandhill cranes attempt to scare off a cow moose outside of West Yellowstone back in the early 1990s,” she said. “It was quite a spectacular thing to see.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
