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The conservationist's eyes scan across miles of tall grassland, hunting for any movement in the early morning gloom.

He utters a hushed tone as they attempt to locate a spot to hide in the grasslands. Behind us, the vast metropolis of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten ahead of sunrise, there is the crunch of footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Snared

Across the heavens, a multitude of winged travelers, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have utilized the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming bugs and berries. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they are flying to warmer places to find food and shelter.

China is home to 1500-plus bird species, accounting for thirteen percent of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major migration routes they follow converge in China.

This particular field where we were, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer little opportunity to rest among towering rows of concrete.

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

The trap we stumbled upon was extending over a large section of the field and supported with wooden sticks. At its center, a meadow pipit was desperately trying to escape, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a protected songbird, a species under protection in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its habitat.

Hunting the Hunters

This activist, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has given up on 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, no-one cared," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who were concerned and established a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held public meetings and invited the leaders of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of persuasion have shown results. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in uncovering other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our goals were partially aligned," Silva says, adding the caveat that implementation remains inconsistent.

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He grew up in the 1990s 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."

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

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I decided back then to dedicate myself to preservation and I took this path," he says.

It has not been an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was being investigated by Silva and fought back.

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

He has also lost his team of helpers over the years. This work requires 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 made it a project because if you want to tackle this challenge, you must commit completely. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising pays for some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He analyzes satellite imagery to find the routes created by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The aerial views can even show netting setups which can capture 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."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the penalties 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 mark of prestige. This originates from 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 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are breaking the law, or understand that so many more birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"This generation didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with some disposable income, 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 adults' values are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

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

A separate individual stands outside a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth about 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders have created their own market.

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

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

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a group of elderly ladies were choreographing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were concealed by dark cloth.

But today there would be no transactions 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