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The activist's gaze sweeps over miles of open meadows, looking for any movement in the early morning gloom.

He speaks in a muted voice as the team seeks a place of cover in the fields. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, the only sound is our own breath.

And then, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, the sound of footsteps emerges. Illegal trappers are present.

Snared

Across the heavens, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating insects and fruit. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the first frosts of winter, they head to warmer places to find food and shelter.

The nation hosts over 1500 bird species, accounting for thirteen percent of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major flyways they follow cross through China.

The patch of grassland in question, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer few options to rest among towering rows of concrete.

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

A net we almost encountered was stretched across a large section of the field and held up with wooden sticks. At its center, a meadow pipit was struggling frantically to escape, 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 "bio-indicator" – that means if its population is healthy, so is its ecosystem.

Hunting the Hunters

This activist, performs this duty for free using his own savings. He has sacrificed many sleeping hours to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"Initially, no-one cared," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and formed a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He held community gatherings and invited the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that the response is not uniform.

This fascination with birds began during childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a distinct era for the city.

He remembers exploring 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 fast-paced development meant grasslands were seen as empty places to build, not conservation areas to conserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I decided back then to work in conservation and I followed this course," he says.

This has not made for an simple journey. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was being investigated by Silva and fought back.

"He gathered several of his accomplices 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 requires 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 commit completely. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says donations pays for some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but donations have dipped because of the economic situation.

So he has found new ways to hunt the hunters.

He analyzes aerial photos to find the routes created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can capture hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species sell for a premium," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now often affluent."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the fines to deter the activity do not outweigh the potential profits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This dates back to the Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build ornate bamboo cages to display their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says some elderly citizens may not understand they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp 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 a little money, they have adopted the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to raise awareness about the environment. Once people's attitudes are set, they're really hard to change."

Busted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a vendor has several small cages with chirping songbirds.

Another man is positioned near a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He tells passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth about 1900 yuan.

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

The area alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

Information suggested that protected birds could be bought in a nearby green space. It was easy to find.

Music was blasting 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 two or three in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

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