Golden eagle swooped down and snatched a toddler as he played in park [pictures + video]

A massive golden eagle circles a park before swooping down and grab a toddler with its claws and trying to fly off with him in an incredible video posted on YouTube.

The clip shows the child's parent looking on in horror as the feathered beast, one of the world's deadliest birds of prey, apparently snatches the boy and lifts him a few feet off the ground.

Footage then shows the eagle dropping the child, whose name and age are unknown, on the grass a few feet away.

Video of the incident starts with footage of the eagle - with a roughly six-foot wing span - flying over a public park in Montreal, Canada. But when the eagle swoops down the French-speaking man filming the incident zooms in.

After swearing in English, he races over to comfort the bewildered child, who starts crying but does not appear to have been seriously hurt.

more pictures and video after the break...

video: