Fowl River is a 14.4 miles (23.2 km) brackish

Brackish water

Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak," meaning "salty"...

 river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

 in Mobile County

Mobile County, Alabama

Mobile County[p] is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of a tribe of Indians, the Maubila tribe . As of 2011, its population was 415,704. Its county seat is Mobile, Alabama...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

. It originates near Theodore

Theodore, Alabama

Theodore is a census-designated place in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 6,811 at the 2000 census. It is a part of the Mobile metropolitan statistical area...

 and then splits into the East Fowl River and the West Fowl River. The East Fowl River discharges into Mobile Bay

Mobile Bay

Mobile Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the...

 south of Belle Fontaine

Belle Fontaine, Alabama

Belle Fontaine is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Mobile County, Alabama, on the western shore of Mobile Bay. It is located south of the city of Mobile, along the stretch of shore between Deer River and Fowl River...

. The West Fowl River discharges into the Mississippi Sound

Mississippi Sound

The Mississippi Sound is a sound along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It runs east-west along the southern coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, from Waveland, Mississippi, to the Dauphin Island Bridge, a distance of about 145 kilometers...

 east of Coden

Coden, Alabama

Coden is an unincorporated coastal fishing village in southern Mobile County, Alabama. Located near Bayou la Batre, it is across the Mississippi Sound from Dauphin Island.-History:...

. It was named by the original French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 colonists as the Riviere aux Poules, which can be translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

as Fowl River.