The incredible battle was captured by amateur photographer Nitin Jain, 38, while he was admiring the wildlife in Pune, India.

During the minute-long battle the ferocious Keelback snake can be seen thrashing out of the water, grabbing the kingfisher around the neck and 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.

Mr Jain said he was 'shocked' to see the bird emerge from the water while clashing with a snake.

'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. 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.'

(dailymail.co.uk)