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Silva Gu's eyes scan across vast expanses of open meadows, looking for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a hushed tone as we try to find a concealed position in the open area. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing slumbers on. As we wait, the only sound is our own breath.

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

Snared

In the skies above us, 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 Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they are flying to warmer places to breed and eat.

There are more than 1,500 bird species, which is about 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major flyways they follow intersect in China.

The patch of grassland in question, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – any further and the city skies offer few options to rest among forests of concrete.

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

The trap we stumbled upon was stretched across half the length of the field and held up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to free his legs, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

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

Pursuing the Poachers

This activist, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has sacrificed many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he enlisted helpers who were concerned and launched a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He held community gatherings and brought in the leaders of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in tracking down other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, adding the caveat that the response is not uniform.

This fascination with birds began during childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a distinct era for the city.

He remembers exploring the grasslands on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

Industrialization brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were viewed as empty places to build, not protected zones to preserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I decided back then to work in conservation and I chose this direction," he says.

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

"He gathered several of his associates who surrounded me and beat me up," Silva recalls. 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 stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says not many are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky 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 pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but support has waned because of the economic situation.

So he has developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He examines satellite imagery to find the routes 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 lines of net traps which can catch 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 own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva reckons the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet 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 elaborate bamboo cages to display 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 numerous birds had to die in a trap for them to purchase a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have adopted the practice of keeping birds in cages," 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."

Apprehended

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

Another man is positioned near a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in 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 small unofficial traders 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 old trinkets to dentures.

We were told that protected birds could be purchased in a small park. The location was not concealed.

Music was blasting from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were choreographing 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 black fabric.

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