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The conservationist's gaze sweeps across vast expanses of open meadows, looking for suspicious activity in the early morning gloom.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a place of cover in the fields. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

In the skies above us, a multitude of winged travelers, some tiny enough that they could rest in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, feasting on bugs and berries. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the initial freeze of winter, they journey to warmer places to breed and eat.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, representing roughly thirteen percent of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major flyways they follow converge in China.

This particular field being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the city skies offer few options to rest among forests of concrete.

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

The trap we stumbled upon was strung across half the length of the field and supported with wooden sticks. In the middle, a small finch was desperately trying to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a protected songbird, a species under protection in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its environment.

Hunting the Hunters

This activist, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years persuading the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Back in 2015, there was little interest," he says.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and launched a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held public meetings and invited the heads of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to tracking down other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our goals were partially aligned," Silva says, adding the caveat that enforcement is still patchy.

Silva's love of birds began during childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a distinct era for the city.

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

Industrialization brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were seen as areas for development, not protected zones to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the habitats they supported.

"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 being investigated by Silva and retaliated.

"He gathered several of his associates who surrounded me and beat me up," Silva recalls. He says he went 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 demands patience and night vigils. Silva says not many are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to solve this big problem, you must give it your all. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising covers some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan a year – but donations have dipped because of the economic situation.

So he has developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He studies aerial photos to find the trails created by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may rest. The aerial views can even show netting setups which can capture 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 often affluent."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the penalties to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits of trapping and trading songbirds.

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

It's a tradition that persists mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or understand that so many more birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"This generation didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with some disposable income, they have inherited the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about the environment. Once adults' values are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Apprehended

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

A separate individual is positioned near a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He tells passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where informal vendors have created their own market.

The path by the river stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to dentures.

Information suggested that protected birds could be bought in a small park. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a traditional dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by 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