Wildlife photographer catches bald eagle swiping rabbit from baby fox
Wildlife photographer and Lynnwood, Washington, resident Kevin Ebi headed for the San Juan Island National Historic Park Saturday just for the red foxes.
Now is a great time of year to capture young foxes playing on the prairie and he snapped shots of the youngsters catching rabbits for dinner.
As he watched one of the kits running with a rabbit in its mouth just before sunset, he heard from behind him the call of a bald eagle.
"I knew what was going to happen," Ebi said, noting the fox carried an "easy meal" for the eagle.
He made sure his camera lens was fixed on the fox, knowing he would get "a second of dramatic action."
"What I was not expecting was for it to accidentally get the fox's head, as well," he said.
In trying to pilfer the kit's prey, the eagle sank its talons into some part of the fox, lifting it up and swinging it back and forth mid-air, Ebi said.
The eagle struggled to make a quick getaway, as it wasn't strong enough to lift both the rabbit and fox. The animals struggled close to the ground, then the eagle finally released the fox "into a cloud of dust" and took off, he said.
All the while, Ebi kepts his finger on the shutter button and caught about 8 seconds of action, more than he could have possibly expected. It made for a stunning series of photographs, which he posted on his blog.
"I just couldn't believe what I was lucky enough to witness," he said.
The fox was OK, Ebi took extra photos of it from different angles and watched it hunker into a den.
After spending several years working on a book about bald eagles, "Year of the Eagle," including three years watching a Kirkland nest, "this is by far the most incredible bald eagle hunting encounter I've ever seen," he said.
He's captured lava flowing into the ocean, explored the magma chamber of an old Icelandic volcano and professionally captured wildlife since 2001.
He admits he is "blessed to have a lot of really incredible experiences," but adds that the fox-and-eagle duel is - "the most dramatic wildlife scene I've ever been fortunate enough to capture."