For a python in search of a meal, a juicy bird relaxing in a Queensland back garden presented too good-an opportunity to miss.

The snake found itself the luckless sulphur-crested cockatoo (pictured) in Clifton Beach, Cairns, and coiled itself tightly around the bird high in the tree’s branches.

Cindy Lane, an artist and owner of the parrot, was painting in her studio when she heard a couple of loud squawks from a bougainvillea tree in her yard. She found the parrot in mid-feed.

"I considered jumping in to save him, but his last breath was literally being squeezed from him as we approached," she told The Cairns Post.

The python took about two hours to complete his meal. "It was difficult to watch but at the same time mesmerising," Ms Lane said.

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