I went with the wife and kids (and dog) up to Fir Island Saturday morning
without reading anything about what to see: I was just hoping to get the
kids out on the dikes and see some raptors and stuff. (Son, 9, daughter, 6)

It was an AWESOME raptor day, considering how little we were trying: we saw
approximately one gazillion red-tails eying the highway median strips on the
way from Seattle up to Fir Island, and once on the dikes, at least a dozen
views of harriers (how many birds total I can't say; some were almost
certainly re-sightings of the same birds), a pair of red-tails, a gorgeous
Cooper's flashing by a perched red-tail, a sharpie missing as it went
through a flock of chickadees and kinglets, a kestrel deciding to keep a
lower profile as we went past, and of course a bunch (probably only a half a
gazillion) eagles: two osprey, the remainder various year-classes of balds.

The kids were very happy with that.

On the way back to the highway, we pulled into a parking lot and trudged
back up the road a bit to do some focals on flocks of larger fowl, figuring
they'd all be snow geese, and I had a vague memory that the Whooper Swan was
supposed to be somewhere in the vicinity of the church, and so we paid
attention and spotted it as described just east of the S. Fork Skagit
bridge. Nobody was out in the field, thank goodness.

The kids were unimpressed, but, at any rate, as of about 3 PM Saturday
afternoon, it's still there.

(And if that helpful redpoll spotter is a tweeter, my wife says thanks!)

-Josh