Is it a birdie? Is it an eagle?

No, it's a squirrel. It's driving players at Riverside Golf Course, well, squirrelly. The rodents keep their eyes on the balls that land on Riverside's fairways, then dart out to grab them and run.

The squirrels aren't storing the balls the way they do acorns. Instead of burying them, they take them up trees and stuff them in magpie nests.

Riverside apprentice golf pro Dillon Wilder said Wednesday no other city course appears to have the same problem. Nos. 10 and 18 are the worst for squirrel thefts. 

The squirrels' thieving ways are so common that Riverside has a special course rule.
Wilder said a player can replace his ball without penalty if fellow golfers agree where it landed on the fairway.

One theory is they put the balls in nests to drive the magpies away. In any event, a ball hawk once reportedly recovered 250 balls from a single tree. Wilder said someone spotted a ball in a tree in front of the municipal golf course's pro shop in early June, started whacking at the branch and brought down 30 balls.

Excerpts taken from The National Post at Canada.com