A wildlife photographer caught a contested lunch on camera, as a bald eagle swooped in to grab a rabbit in the jaws of a fox, in the northwestern U.S. state of Washington.

The young fox was scampering across an open field in San Juan Island National Historical Park with the rabbit in its mouth, when a young eagle dive-bombed its lunch, lifting the fox into the air still clinging to the rabbit.

"I don't know that I'll ever see anything quite that dramatic again," Kevin Ebi, the photographer who caught the drama on film, told National Geographic.

Dive-bombing to steal prey from foxes and other large birds is a commonly-employed hunting tactic for bald eagles. It's called kleptoparasitism, or piracy, and is used by a range of animals.

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