Grizzly bear

There’s a surprising answer to the question of what can scare off a Yellowstone grizzly bear.

In fact, it’s a bird, albeit a large one.

Wildlife photographer Linda Ghent captured video and posted it on Facebook, a video of a sandhill crane protecting her nest from the bear.

She told the Cowboy State Daily, “What cracked me up was the crane’s little hop at the end. That little victory dance.”

The report said the bear is Storm, the daughter of Snow, one of the park’s most visible bears.

Storm is three years ago, and Ghent explained the bear’s youth and inexperience probably played in the crane’s favor during the encounter.

Storm apparently was too close to a sandhill crane nest and the crane was having none of it, the report said.

“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,” the report said. “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.”