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Silva Gu's eyes scan over miles of dense fields, searching for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in a muted voice as the team seeks a spot to hide in the grasslands. Behind us, the vast metropolis of Beijing slumbers on. As we wait, the only sound is our own breath.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Trapped

Overhead, countless migratory birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the long summer days in northern regions, eating bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they journey to southern locales to nest and feed.

China is home to over 1500 bird species, which is about 13% of the planet's species – more than 800 of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major migration routes they follow cross through China.

The patch of grassland in question, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer few options to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "mist nets", so thin you can hardly spot them.

The one we nearly walked into was strung across a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was desperately trying to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a protected songbird, a species under protection in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – that means if its population is healthy, so is its environment.

Hunting the Hunters

Silva, who is in his 30s, performs this duty for free using his own savings. He has sacrificed many sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"In the early days, authorities were indifferent," he states.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and formed a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and brought in the heads of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy have shown results. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to tracking down other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, noting that implementation remains inconsistent.

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

He remembers wandering in 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 millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered empty places to build, not sanctuaries to conserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the habitats they supported.

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

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

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

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands patience and night vigils. 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 solve this big problem, you must commit completely. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says donations pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has developed new ways to track the poachers.

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 aerial views can even show netting setups which can capture scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the fines to punish the crime do not exceed the financial benefits 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 ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or understand that so many more birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have adopted the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about the environment. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several tiny enclosures with tiny twittering birds.

Another man stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He informs passers-by discreetly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

The area by the river stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

Information suggested that wild songbirds could be purchased in a small park. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker under the low trees where a group of elderly ladies were performing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were concealed by dark cloth.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had arrived. They were questioning the bird owners and taking names. Defiant, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his