Louisiana oil spill

Blobs of gooey tar washed ashore on Florida beaches and dying birds lay drenched in oil across the Louisiana coastal wetlands on June 4 as BP struggled to adjust the cap it placed atop a gushing deep-sea oil pipe to finally stem the flow of crude.

Above, a bird can barely be seen through all the oil covering it.

After weeks of failed attempts to plug its ruptured deep-sea well, BP completed the complex capping process late on the night of June 3 - first using giant shears to make a jagged cut in the leaking pipe, then hefting a containment cap over the hole to stem the flow, according to wire reports.

Above, a brown pelican is seen at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on June 3.