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The activist's vision darts across miles of dense fields, looking for any movement in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters less than a whisper as they attempt to locate a concealed position in the grasslands. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, we hear only the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter ahead of sunrise, there is the crunch of footsteps. The poachers are here.

Snared

In the skies above us, billions of birds, many so small that they could rest in the cup of a hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have utilized the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming insects and fruit. As the year nears its end and icy winds bring the initial freeze of winter, they are flying to southern locales to find food and shelter.

China is home to 1500-plus bird species, representing roughly 13% of the planet's species – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Four of the nine major migration routes they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow where we were, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the city skies offer few options to rest among forests of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so delicate you can hardly spot them.

A net we almost encountered was stretched across a large section of the field and held up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a small finch was fighting hard to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a meadow pipit, a species under protection in China, and an important "indicator species" – meaning if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Hunting the Hunters

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has sacrificed many sleeping hours to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last decade urging the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Initially, there was little interest," he says.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and launched a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held public meetings and invited the heads of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police found that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, adding the caveat that implementation remains inconsistent.

Silva's love of birds started in childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

He recalls roaming through the grasslands on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were viewed as areas for development, not conservation areas to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I made the choice back then to pursue environmental protection and I followed this course," he says.

This has not made for an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was under scrutiny by Silva and fought back.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who surrounded me and beat me up," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but the perpetrators were not held accountable.

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to solve this big problem, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan a year – but support has waned because of the economic situation.

So he has developed new ways to track the poachers.

He examines aerial photos to find the routes worn away by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' migratory routes and looks for areas where they may rest. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can catch hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species sell for a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the penalties to deter the activity do not exceed the potential profits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that persists mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are breaking the law, or understand that so many more birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have adopted the practice of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're really hard to change."

Busted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with tiny twittering birds.

Another man stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage covered by a black veil. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

The area alongside the water extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

We were told that wild songbirds could be bought in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Music was blasting from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had arrived. They were interviewing the bird owners and recording details. Defiant, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his