Photographer David Canales captured this outstanding photograph of three avian dinosaurs doing battle while kayaking on Alaska’s Prince William Sound. “One of the most epic sights I’ve ever seen,” Canales wrote on Instagram, where he’s been cataloguing his recent adventures in Alaska.
“This eagle flew right into a nest of these birds and just carried this guy away like nothing,” he added on Facebook, where he’s shared still more photos from a recent 11-day trip from from Valdez to Whittier. The U.S. Department of the Interior later shared the photo to its own Facebook page, where it answered the question you have, by now, no doubt asked yourself: “...the eagle won! The top gull gave up and the bottom one couldn’t free itself.”
Another photo, also posted to Canales’ Facebook album shows the encounter from a different angle, with not one but two gulls giving chase.
Canales says the experience instilled in him a new respect for this apex predator. The bald eagles in Valdez, he writes, “don’t mess around.”
Contact the author at rtgonzalez@io9.com and @rtg0nzalez.