A bald eagle likely thought that grabbing a tiny loon chick would be an easy meal. .

After the eagle wrapped its talons around the chick, another loon — possibly the chick's parent — stabbed the eagle in the heart with its "dagger-like bill," killing the American mascot in one fell swoop, according to Danielle D'Auria, a wildlife biologist at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. .

This is the only documented case of a loon — aquatic birds that belong to the genus Gavia — killing an eagle by stabbing it in the chest, D'Auria wrote in a May 18 blog post for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. .

D'Auria learned that a bald eagle carcass and a dead loon chick (sadly, the loon chick did not survive) had been found at Highland Lake in Bridgton, Maine in July 2019.

As D'Auria wrote in the blog, "No metal showed up on the image, but during the external exam a puncture wound on the eagle's chest was discovered.".

D'Auria suspected that an adult loon had stabbed the predator, perhaps in an "attempt to protect its chick from the eagle," she wrote in the blog.

What's more, the number of bald eagle and loon conflicts has soared in recent years, as the eagle population has recovered from its endangered status.

"Sure enough, the pathologist who examined the eagle and loon chick in the lab called me shortly afterward to tell me it indeed looked as though the loon was the culprit in this eagle's death," D'Auria wrote in the blog.

Moreover, the loon chick had puncture marks on its body that had the same spacing as an eagle's talons.