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The conservationist's gaze sweeps over vast expanses of open meadows, searching for signs of life in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a spot to hide in the fields. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing has yet to wake. During the vigil, we hear only our own breath.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, there is the crunch of footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Snared

Overhead, a multitude of winged travelers, some tiny enough that they could rest in the palm of your hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have benefited from the extended daylight in northern regions, feasting on insects and fruit. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the initial freeze of winter, they head to southern locales to find food and shelter.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, which is about 13% of the planet's species – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Four of the nine major migration routes they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow in question, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "mist nets", so fine you can almost miss them.

The trap we stumbled upon was stretched across a large section of the field and held up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a tiny bird was desperately trying to escape, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a meadow pipit, a species under protection in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its habitat.

Hunting the Hunters

This activist, does this work for free using his own savings. He has forgone many nights of sleep to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years persuading the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

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

So he gathered a team who did care and launched a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and invited the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police found that catching poachers also led to identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our goals were somewhat shared," Silva says, noting that the response is not uniform.

His passion for avian life began during childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a distinct era for the city.

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

Industrialization brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were viewed as empty places to build, not protected zones to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I decided back then to dedicate myself to preservation and I chose this direction," he says.

It has not been an easy life. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was under scrutiny by Silva and retaliated.

"He gathered several of his accomplices who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but the perpetrators were not brought to justice.

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"This is my full-time commitment," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to solve this big problem, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You cannot be half-hearted."

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

So he has adopted new ways to hunt the hunters.

He studies aerial photos to find the paths created by the poachers. He maps those 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 capture scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a premium," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the fines to punish the crime do not exceed the potential profits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This originates from the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a caged bird.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with some disposable income, they have inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to raise awareness about the environment. Once adults' values are formed, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a vendor has several tiny enclosures with tiny twittering birds.

Another man stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage covered by a dark cloth. He informs passers-by discreetly that his songbird is rare, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

The path alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to dentures.

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

Loud music played from a speaker under the low trees where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a fan dance. Close by several men, all over 50, had congregated with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

But today there would be no transactions because the police had arrived. They were interviewing the bird owners and taking names. Unyielding, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his