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The conservationist's eyes scan across miles of open meadows, hunting for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters less than a whisper as we try to find a spot to hide in the open area. Behind us, the vast metropolis of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, the only sound is our own breath.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

Overhead, billions of birds, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have taken advantage of the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they are flying to southern locales to breed and eat.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major migration routes they follow converge in China.

This particular field in question, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer little opportunity to rest among clusters of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "mist nets", so fine you can almost miss them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over half the length of the field and supported with wooden sticks. At its center, a meadow pipit was struggling frantically to escape, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a protected songbird, a protected bird 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 own savings. He has given up on many nights of sleep to rescue birds, and he has spent the last decade urging the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

"Back in 2015, authorities were indifferent," he says.

So he gathered a team who did care and established a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He organized public meetings and invited the officials of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police discovered that catching poachers also led to uncovering other kinds of illegal operations.

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

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

He recalls exploring the grasslands on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, everything changed."

Industrialization brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were viewed as land for construction, not sanctuaries to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the habitats they supported.

"I decided back then to pursue environmental protection and I took this path," 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 retaliated.

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

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says few people are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"This is my full-time commitment," 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 donations covers some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan a year – but donations have dipped because of the slowing economy.

So he has found new ways to hunt the hunters.

He studies satellite imagery to find the paths created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths 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.

"Certain prized species sell for a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the fines to deter the activity do not outweigh the potential profits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. 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 older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand 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.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have adopted the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Disrupted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with chirping songbirds.

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

This offers a view of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders 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 false teeth.

We were told that protected birds could be purchased in a small park. 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. Close by several men, all in their later years, had congregated with bird cages – some had two or three 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. Unyielding, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his