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The activist's eyes scan over miles of open meadows, searching for any movement in the inky blackness.

He speaks in a hushed tone as they attempt to locate a spot to hide in the open area. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. 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 journeying southward for winter.

They have benefited from the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, feasting on insects and fruit. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they head to southern locales to breed and eat.

There are more than 1,500 bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the global population – more than 800 of those are migratory birds. Four of the nine major paths they follow intersect in China.

The patch of grassland in question, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the city skies offer little opportunity to rest among forests of concrete.

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

The trap we stumbled upon was stretched across a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was fighting hard to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a meadow pipit, a species under protection in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Pursuing the Poachers

Silva, who is in his 30s, carries out this mission for free using his own savings. He has forgone many sleeping hours to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last decade urging the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he enlisted helpers who did care and established a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held community gatherings and invited the officials of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police found that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

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

This fascination with birds began during childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a much changed capital.

He recalls exploring the grasslands on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

Industrialization brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were seen as land for construction, not protected zones to conserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the habitats they supported.

"I made the choice back then to dedicate myself to preservation and I chose this direction," he says.

This has not made for an simple journey. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was being investigated by Silva and retaliated.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who surrounded me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. 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 demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"I do this full-time," 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 pays for some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has adopted new ways to hunt the hunters.

He analyzes aerial photos to find the trails worn away 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 lines of net traps which can capture scores of small birds during darkness.

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

While there are environmental regulations in place, Silva believes the fines to deter the activity do not outweigh the potential profits of catching and selling songbirds.

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

It's a tradition that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or understand that so many more birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

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 covered by a black veil. He tells passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where small unofficial traders have created their own market.

The path by the river stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing everything from old trinkets to false teeth.

We were told that protected birds could be purchased in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Music was blasting 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 gathered 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 interviewing the bird owners and taking names. Defiant, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his