Swan Pool and The Swag

Swan Pool and The Swag are two pools, linked by a culvert under Stubbers Green Road, Walsall. They lie on an impermeable later of the Etruria Marl (Upper Carboniferous Coal Measures). They were important because their associated reedbeds held the largest roost for swallows and other hirundines in the West Midlands.

Flora and fauna

Swan Pool is surrounded on three sides by swamp and tall fen vegetation dominated by greater reedmace (Typha latifolia) and reed sweet-grass (Glyceria maxima), with scattered clumps of goat willow (salix caprea), grey willow (Salix cinerea), and hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna). The north western end of The Swag has similar emergent vegetation. This grades into areas of wet neutral grassland with tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) and creeping bent (Agrostis stolonifera). The reedbeds around the pools formerly held a peak population of around 10,000 hirundines during their autumn migration. The roost was composed mainly of swallows (Hirundo rustica) with up to one-third being sand-martins (Riparia riparia). The two sites provided a roost for a significant proportion (at least 1%) of the total British swallow population. Common snip (Gallinago gallinago) and jack snipe (Lymnocryptes minimus) overwinter on areas adjacent to the site and use the shelter of the reedbeds. The reedbed on The Swag is an autumn roost for up to 100 yellow wagtails (Motacilla flava). The pools and their margins are a stopping off point for passage migrant birds. There is public access to the banks of both pools.