"We love our loons here in Minnesota. We watch them all summer, we like to see them raise their chicks. And then they just kind of disappear and we don't think of them for half a year. Turns out, 80 or 90 percent of our loons winter in the Gulf of Mexico, just offshore from Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. And that's exactly where most of the oil has settled from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill."

Carrol Henderson, nongame wildlife program supervisor, Minnesota DNR

Henderson helped radiomark 17 juvenile common loons in Minnesota this summer, as part of an effort to document the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Track the loon's migration online at tinyurl.com/3chqpr4.