Posted by Bob Lefebvre.

In May 2006, before I was a serious birder (and before I had a digital camera), I saw an American Robin in my yard with an unusual blue spot on its back.

On closer inspection, the blue spot turned out to be the plastic head of a long metal pin that passed right through the bird’s body.

If you look closely at the above photos you can see the pin protruding from the robin’s breast. Here is a better look at the front of the bird.

I called the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, and they said if I could capture it I should bring it in. But I wasn’t able to get close enough to it to capture it. The bird could fly and feed normally, and appeared healthy. I even watched it evade a feral cat once. The robin was in the vicinity of our yard for a week.

It may be a little hard to tell from these photos, but the pin was not just through the feathers but right through the centre of the bird.

I’ve always wondered what this pin was and how it got in the robin. At first I thought it might be a tracking device, but it looks like an ordinary pin. Was it pushed through the bird by someone? Shot at it? Someone speculated that perhaps it was pushed through the egg and the bird grew around it! I haven’t seen a pin quite like it – does anyone recognize this type or have any idea how this could have happened?

Over the course of the week, the pin gradually worked out the back of the bird so the head was about two inches from its back. Then I never saw it again, or if I did, it was pin-less.