A kingfisher with its eyes on an easy meal bit off a little more than it could chew.
The hungry bird plucked a snake from the water – but was stunned as the reptile fought back and grabbed it around the neck.
Nature’s dramatic sequence was captured by amateur photographer Nitin Jain, 38.
He was admiring the wildlife when he caught sight of the kingfisher struggling under water.
Nitin said: “Suddenly the kingfisher appeared from the water. I was shocked to see it was clashing with a snake.”
During the battle, which lasted around a minute, the ferocious snake, which Nitin believes to be a Keelback, can be seen thrashing out of the water.
It grabs the kingfisher around the neck, dunking it back under the water multiple times.
The struggle seemingly proved too much for the kingfisher as it was pulled under water by the snake, when suddenly the kingfisher used all it’s energy to free itself from the snakes grasp and fly away in a dramatic escape.
Fleeing to a nearby tree, the kingfisher remained still for the next two hours, taking time to recover from his shock battle.
Nitin, who captured the images in Pune, India, added: “I was photographing herons, egrets, and cormorants, I was not at all expecting such action to happen.
“I felt very lucky to witness something like this.”
“I have been photographing Kingfishers for many years now, but have never seen such behaviour,” he continued.
“This is very unusual, I checked the internet after photographing this, but could not find anything similar.
“I went to the same place at least 20 more times but such thing did not happen again.”