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The activist's vision darts over miles of tall grassland, searching for suspicious activity in the early morning gloom.

He utters a muted voice as they attempt to locate a place of cover in the grasslands. In the distance, the vast metropolis of Beijing slumbers on. As we wait, the only sound is the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky starts to lighten before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

Overhead, billions of birds, many so small that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have benefited from the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year nears its end and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they journey to southern locales to find food and shelter.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow where we were, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "mist nets", so delicate you can hardly spot them.

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across a large section of the field and held up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was struggling frantically to escape, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

This 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.

Tracking the Trappers

The conservationist, in his thirties, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many nights of sleep to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

"Initially, no-one cared," he remarks.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and launched a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He organized public meetings and invited the officials of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police found that catching poachers also helped in uncovering other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, adding the caveat that enforcement is still patchy.

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

He recalls roaming through the fields on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, everything changed."

Industrialization brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were seen as empty places to build, not protected zones to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I decided back then to work in conservation and I followed this course," he says.

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

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

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I made it a project 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 track the poachers.

He examines satellite imagery to find the trails created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can capture hundreds of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a high price," 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 believes the penalties 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 dates back to the imperial era. Nobles and elites 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 committing a wildlife crime, or grasp 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 keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Apprehended

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a vendor has several tiny enclosures with chirping songbirds.

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

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

The path by the river 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 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 performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

But today there would be no transactions because the police had appeared. They were interviewing the bird owners and recording details. Unyielding, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his