Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
tommy wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
I saw this thing yesterday in an alley in Albany Park yesterday. It was making an odd screeching sound.

It could be a limpkin or a bittern. He was pretty far afield.
looks like a bittern--probably is one if it was making that annoying sound! are there wetlands around there or something?
It was a few blocks from the river. I'm guessing he just got off course a little.
Google Lens says it is a Bittern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bitternQuote:
The American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) is a species of wading bird in the heron family. It has a Nearctic distribution, breeding in Canada and the northern and central parts of the United States, and wintering in the U.S. Gulf Coast states, all of Florida into the Everglades, the Caribbean islands and parts of Central America.
It is a well-camouflaged, solitary brown bird that unobtrusively inhabits marshes and the coarse vegetation at the edge of lakes and ponds. In the breeding season it is chiefly noticeable by the loud, booming call of the male. The nest is built just above the water, usually among bulrushes and cattails, where the female incubates the clutch of olive-colored eggs for about four weeks. The young leave the nest after two weeks and are fully fledged at six or seven weeks.
The American bittern feeds mostly on fish but also eats other small vertebrates as well as crustaceans and insects. It is fairly common over its wide range, but its numbers are thought to be decreasing, especially in the south, because of habitat degradation. However the total population is large, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "Least Concern".