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The activist's eyes scan across vast expanses of dense fields, searching for any movement in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in a muted voice as the team seeks a place of cover in the open area. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

Suddenly, as the sky begins to brighten with the approaching day, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

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

They have benefited from the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming insects and fruit. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the first frosts of winter, they head to southern locales to breed and eat.

The nation hosts 1500-plus bird species, representing roughly thirteen percent of the planet's species – more than 800 of those are migratory birds. Several of the major migration routes they follow intersect in China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer little opportunity to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so thin you can barely see them.

A net we almost encountered was strung across half the length of the field and propped up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a tiny bird was struggling frantically to untangle itself, 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 "indicator species" – meaning if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Hunting the Hunters

This activist, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many sleeping hours to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Back in 2015, no-one cared," he says.

So he gathered a team who did care and launched a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He held public meetings and invited the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion have shown results. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

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

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He grew up in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

He remembers exploring the grasslands on the city's edges where he discovered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, everything changed."

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

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I decided back then to dedicate myself to preservation and I followed this course," he says.

It has not been an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was being investigated by Silva and retaliated.

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

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says few people are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I made it a project 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 – over 100,000 yuan a year – but funding has declined because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He analyzes satellite imagery to find the paths created 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 at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the fines to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits 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. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that so many more birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a caged bird.

"This generation didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have inherited the practice of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about ecology. Once adults' values are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several tiny enclosures with chirping songbirds.

A separate individual is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

The area by the river stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to false teeth.

We were told that protected birds could be bought in a nearby green space. It was easy to find.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

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