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Silva Gu's gaze sweeps across vast expanses of dense fields, hunting for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as they attempt to locate a place of cover in the open area. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten with the approaching day, there is the crunch of footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Caught

Overhead, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have taken advantage of the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating insects and fruit. As the year comes to a close and chilling gusts bring the first frosts of winter, they are flying to warmer places to nest and feed.

There are over 1500 bird species, representing roughly 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major flyways they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow in question, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "mist nets", so fine you can almost miss them.

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across half the length of the field and supported with wooden sticks. At its center, a small finch was struggling frantically to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a meadow pipit, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – meaning if its population is healthy, so is its environment.

Tracking the Trappers

This activist, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many sleeping hours to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last decade persuading the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he gathered a team who did care and established a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held community gatherings and brought in the officials of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy appear to have worked. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in uncovering other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our goals were somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that enforcement is still patchy.

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

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

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered empty places to build, not sanctuaries to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the habitats they supported.

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

This has not made for an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was under scrutiny by Silva and retaliated.

"He assembled several of his associates who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva remembers. He says he reported 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 willing to take on the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to address this major issue, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You cannot be half-hearted."

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 developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He examines satellite imagery to find the paths 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 hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species 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 reckons the penalties to deter the activity do not exceed the potential profits of catching and selling songbirds.

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

It's a tradition that continues mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are breaking the law, or grasp that so many more birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about ecology. Once adults' values are set, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a trader has several tiny enclosures with chirping songbirds.

Another man stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, 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 area by the river stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to dentures.

Information suggested that protected birds could be bought in a small park. It was easy to find.

Loud music played from a speaker under the low trees where a group of elderly ladies were choreographing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

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