A bird of prey identified as an eagle or a hawk snatched a Yorkshire Terrier puppy away from a nine-year-old Polish girl as she walked the dog with her mom along by a lake, a Polish newspaper said on Friday.

"It all happened in the space of a second," nine-year-old Kaja said, quoted by the mass circulation Fakt tabloid daily.

"All of a sudden there was a shadow over us. All I saw were these huge claws as long as my own fingers that clamped down into the body of my dog."

Kaya's mother tried but failed to free the puppy, named Albercik, from the bird's grip. The incident occurred in a forested area along the shore of lake Sajmino, near the town of Ostruda, in a remote area of northern Poland.

AFP