Three members of the northern bald ibis, which was held sacred by the Egyptian pharaohs but was thought to be extinct in the Middle East until four years ago, have been satellite tagged to aid conservation efforts.

Scientists will be tracking the migrating birds as they leave their breeding sites near Palmyra in southeast Syria.

The northern bald ibis was once widespread across the Middle East, northern Africa and the European Alps but there are now just 13 left in Syria and 100 breeding pairs in Morocco.

Scientists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife Middle East hope to locate where the ibis go to for the winter and discover why so few birds come back.

The birds are expected to head south towards Saudi Arabia and Yemen, or even as far as Eritrea.

The northern bald ibis is classified as critically endangered by the IUCN-World Conservation Union and its numbers have declined rapidly due to habitat loss, human disturbance, hunting and pesticide poisoning.

There are now only two populations left in the world – the small number in Syria and the ones in the Souss-Massa National Park near Agadir in Morocco.