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Silva Gu's vision darts across miles of tall grassland, searching for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as they attempt to locate a place of cover in the grasslands. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing has yet to wake. During the vigil, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten with the approaching day, there is the crunch of footsteps. The poachers are here.

Trapped

Overhead, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they could rest in the palm of your hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have benefited from the long summer days in northern regions, eating insects and fruit. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the initial freeze of winter, they head to more temperate climates to find food and shelter.

China is home to 1500-plus bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the global population – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Four of the nine major flyways they follow intersect in China.

The patch of grassland being monitored, 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 "fine nets", so fine you can hardly spot them.

The trap we stumbled upon was extending over a large section of the field and propped up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Tracking the Trappers

The conservationist, in his thirties, carries out this mission for free using his own savings. 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, authorities were indifferent," he states.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and launched a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held public meetings and invited the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion have shown results. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

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

This fascination with birds 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 discovered birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, everything changed."

Rapid economic growth brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This fast-paced development meant grasslands were seen as land for construction, not sanctuaries to conserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the habitats they supported.

"I decided back then to pursue environmental protection and I took this path," he says.

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

"He gathered several of his accomplices who surrounded me and beat me up," 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 requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are willing to take on 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 devote yourself wholeheartedly. You can't do it part-time."

He says donations covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but support has waned because of the economic situation.

So he has developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He examines aerial photos 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 satellite images can even show netting setups which can capture hundreds of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the fines to punish the crime do not exceed the potential profits of trapping and trading songbirds.

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

This custom that persists mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous 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. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about ecology. Once adults' values are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Disrupted

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

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

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

The path alongside the water extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

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

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had congregated 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 appeared. 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