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Silva Gu's eyes scan across vast expanses of dense fields, looking for any movement in the inky blackness.

He utters a muted voice as they attempt to locate a concealed position in the grasslands. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, we hear only our own breath.

And then, as the sky starts to lighten before dawn, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Caught

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

They have taken advantage of the warmer months in northern regions, 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.

There are over 1500 bird species, which is about 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major migration routes they follow intersect in China.

The patch of grassland where we were, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer few options to rest among towering rows of concrete.

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

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across half the length of the field and held up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a meadow pipit was struggling frantically to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its population is healthy, so is its environment.

Pursuing the Poachers

This activist, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Back in 2015, no-one cared," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and launched a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held community gatherings and invited the heads of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of advocacy have shown results. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, adding the caveat that the response is not uniform.

His passion for avian life began during childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

He remembers wandering in the fields on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, everything changed."

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were viewed as empty places to build, not sanctuaries to conserve.

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

"I decided back then to dedicate myself to preservation 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 retaliated.

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

He has also lost his team of helpers over the years. This work requires patience and night vigils. Silva says few people are willing to take on the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to tackle this challenge, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says donations pays for some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but support has waned because of the slowing economy.

So he has found new ways to hunt the hunters.

He analyzes aerial photos 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 satellite images can even show netting setups which can catch scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a premium," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are environmental regulations in place, Silva argues the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the potential profits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This dates back to the Qing dynasty. 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 may not understand they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a pet.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to raise awareness about ecology. Once people's attitudes are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

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

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

This offers a view of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have created their own market.

The area by the river stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to false teeth.

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

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing 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 today there would be no transactions because the police had appeared. They were questioning the bird owners and taking names. Defiant, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his