A pond scoggin is a large bird with very long legs that often stands in the water of ditches, creeks, and the like to catch fish, frogs, etc.
It used to be a pretty common term down here in the south, but in the last twenty five years the only person I've heard use the term is me.
The last time I heard anyone other them myself use the term was after a fishing trip. I'd hiked way into the river swamp to fish in some of the sloughs. I was in the middle of nowhere so the last thing I expected was company, but company found me. An older man and woman came wondering up to me. They were dressed nice. Too nice for the swamp. They had cameras and binoculars around their necks. They asked if I'd seen any egrets because they were there to photograph them. Seeing as how I had no idea, at the time, of what an egret happened to be there was no way that I could know for sure if I'd seen one or not so I told them "no" and went back to fishing. I left soon after because the egret hunters had decided to linger and it bothered me.
The next day I was telling a friend about it, and he asked if I'd seen any white pond scoggins. I told him I had seen lots of them. He then asked if I'd pointed them out to the egret hunters. I told him no because they were looking for egrets. He explained that the white pond scoggins were the egrets that they were looking for.
At the time I wondered why they didn't just ask if I knew where any white pond scoggins were at. Now days I wonder why I seem to be the only person in the world that still uses the term pond scoggin.
I actually rescued one once. Someone had set out some bush hooks when the river was high. When the river went down it left the hooks dangling out of the water. One of the hooks had caught a huge pond scoggin in the wing. He was flopping around pretty good, but as my friend and I eased over to him he seemed to calm down. He remained perfectly still as we clipped the line as close to the hook as possible. He stood there calm for a minute, then spread his huge wings and flew away. He wasn't white so he probably wasn't a egret. I'd suppose that some would say he was a heron, but I'm pretty sure that he and I both knew he was a pond scoggin.
But enough rambling. I was wondering if "pond scoggin" is just a regional term. Or maybe it is (at least now) just a ChuckJ term.
