Mission Bay looks effortless now — sailboats drifting, joggers circling the paths, SeaWorld rising across the water. It feels permanent. It isn’t. Before it became Mission Bay, it appeared on 19th-century maps as “False Bay.” For much of San Diego’s early history, it was a shifting estuary of mudflats, tidal creeks, and salt marsh. … Almost none of the original salt marsh survives; however, one fragment remains at the Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve in Pacific Beach, part of the University of California Natural Reserve System. There, pickleweed still grows in salty soil, and shorebirds move through tidal shallows — a living glimpse of the ecosystem that once dominated the basin.

Other wetlands news:

• Napa Valley Register (Napa, Calif.): Budding Napa River Ecology Center gets funding boost from California Coastal Conservancy
• California WaterBlog (UC Davis): Getting our feet wet: bringing photography students into the Yolo Bypass