There are a lot of rivers in Maryland. The Potomac is certainly the best-known--and it is a Maryland river, as the state line with Virginia is demarcated as the western (or southern) bank of the river, as opposed to the middle. If you want to be in Virginia, you have to be standing on dry land.

Plenty of other rivers are important to the state. The various branches of the Patapsco and Patuxent rivers empty into the Chesapeake, and the mouth of the Susquehanna tumbles over the Conowingo Dam and becomes the north end of Chesapeake Bay near Havre de Grace.

There is one Maryland river, however, that is something of an epithet. Two branches come together about a mile outside the D.C. line to form the main body of the Anacostia. The far southeastern section of our nation's capital is known as Anacostia, and for some time it has been synonymous with decline, crime and general slumminess.

This, of course, isn't fair. There are large sections of Anacostia D.C. that are well-kept and relatively untouched by crime. And then there are sections that fit the stereotype to a T. That's the way with stereotypes, I suppose.

But I'd rather talk about the river. As it runs through D.C., the Anacostia is tidal. In Maryland, however, it is merely engineered. Scores of floods brought dredging and levees and all the other twentieth century flood management programs you can think of. While the tidal sections of the river are dotted by (mostly abandoned) factories and other industrial buildings, the actual banks are unkempt, if not actually wild. There are levees, but not so much of the boulder-built banking you see in Maryland.

In short, there's a reason the Anacostia isn't celebrated. It has felt the hand of man far too often to retain much of its natural beauty.

But there are parts in the northern reaches of the northwest branch of the Anacostia that are essentially wild. Once you get north of the beltway, you can get lost in trails along the river and almost forget that you're hiking through a county that is home to a million people. It's pretty cool.

Down in Bladensburg, just south of the confluence, there is a water park. The river is not quite tidal, but it spreads out and serves as wetlands for a number of non-exotic creatures. These flats also provide a nice spot for folks to get out in canoes and paddleboats and gawk at ducks, geese, etc. You can rent the boats and more at the park, or you can do like me and simply bike along the river trail.

I don't do a lot of nature watching along the Anacostia. I saw a muskrat once, and every so often a heron pokes in the mud. I've always assumed there were fish in the water, but I never actually saw one.

Yesterday, however, I saw something completely new. As I was heading down the river just past the confluence, I saw two large birds circling the river. Not that surprising, really, as there are all sorts of hawks and the like. But these didn't look like hawks or ospreys. They were a little bit bigger. I had the somewhat romantic notion that they might be a young bald eagle nesting pair.

In recent years, bald eagles have begun to disprove the notion that they don't like living near people. The bald eagle population has exploded so much that young eagles are now roosting in highway medians in parts of the D.C. area. But I'd never seen any near the Anacostia.

I kept riding to the end of the trail, just outside D.C. I turned back, and as I neared the confluence once again, I saw the birds. I was disappointed to see that the feathers on the underside were mottled light and dark. Bald eagles, I thought, were pretty much dark brown. Then the bird closest to me dove into the river, splashing down some 20 feet from where I was riding. I took a closer look, and a white head popped out of the water. Then the great bird lifted off, holding a sizable fish in its claws--displaying white tail feathers. It headed up the northeast branch--possibly toward its nest--and the other eagle followed. I guess I was right. The birds were bald eagles and they probably were a nesting pair.

Animal and plant species are dying off at rates never before seen by humans. We probably have had a lot to do with that. But we are also responsible for the resurgence of certain animals, such as the bald eagle. Indeed, as of 2007 it is no longer even considered threatened. Prudently, however, almost all of the restrictions that have led to this resurgence are still in place. Sometimes people can do the right thing.

This isn't about Earth Day or urging people to start paying attention to how badly humans are managing the planet. Other folks do that much better than me. And I'm glad they do, so that I could have the chance to see a bald eagle fishing along the Anacostia. Sometimes you just sit back and think, "Now that's cool."

Jon Worley likes rivers more than he likes most people.