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The activist's eyes scan across vast expanses of dense fields, looking for suspicious activity in the early morning gloom.

He utters less than a whisper as the team seeks a concealed position in the fields. Behind us, the vast metropolis of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, we hear only the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky begins to brighten with the approaching day, the sound of footsteps emerges. The poachers are here.

Trapped

Overhead, a multitude of winged travelers, many so small that they could rest in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have benefited from the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating insects and fruit. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the early cold of winter, they are flying to southern locales to breed and eat.

The nation hosts over 1500 bird species, representing roughly 13% of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major flyways they follow cross through China.

The patch of grassland where we were, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – any further and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among clusters of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "fine nets", so fine you can barely see them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was fighting hard to free his legs, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – meaning if its numbers are thriving, so is its environment.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, performs this duty for free using his own savings. He has sacrificed many nights of sleep to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last decade persuading the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"In the early days, there was little interest," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and formed a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and invited the heads of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion have shown results. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, adding the caveat that implementation remains inconsistent.

This fascination with birds began during childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a very different Beijing.

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

Rapid economic growth brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were seen as areas for development, not conservation areas to conserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands receded, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I decided back then to work in conservation and I took this path," he says.

It has not been an simple journey. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was under scrutiny by Silva and fought back.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who surrounded me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not brought to justice.

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says not many are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"This is my full-time commitment," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to address this major issue, you must commit completely. You can't do it part-time."

He says donations covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but donations have dipped because of the slowing economy.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He analyzes satellite imagery to find the trails worn away by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' migratory routes and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can catch hundreds of small birds at night.

"Certain prized species 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 reckons the fines to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that persists mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to educate people about the environment. Once people's attitudes are set, they're really hard to change."

Apprehended

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

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

This offers a view of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have created their own market.

The path alongside the water extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to false teeth.

Information suggested that wild songbirds could be bought in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Music was blasting from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

But today there would be no sales because the police had arrived. 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