Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Two red-tailed hawks and a crow are seen during a handing off ceremony of the first of six C-17 Globemaster III airlifters built for the United Arab Emirates Air Force and Air Defence at the Boeing final assembly facility at Long Beach Airport on May 10 in Long Beach, California.

Whilst covering the handoff ceremony for a Boeing airlifter in Long Beach, photographer Kevork Djansezian spotted a very different form of aerial combat taking place in the skies above.

UPDATE: In his caption, Djansezian identified the birds of prey as peregrine falcons, but readers contacted us to say that they are red-tailed hawks. We have now confirmed this with Getty Images and updated the caption above. Many thanks to our eagle-eyed readers fred-3455755 and uplandsandpiper.