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The activist's gaze sweeps across miles of dense fields, looking for signs of life in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters less than a whisper as the team seeks a concealed position in the open area. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, the only sound is the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, there is the crunch of footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

In the skies above us, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have utilized the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the initial freeze of winter, they journey to warmer places to find food and shelter.

The nation hosts over 1500 bird species, representing roughly thirteen percent of the world's total – more than 800 of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major flyways they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the city skies offer little opportunity to rest among clusters of concrete.

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

A net we almost encountered was strung across half the length of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to escape, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

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

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 set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years persuading the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

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

So he gathered a team who did care and launched a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized community gatherings and brought in the officials of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of persuasion have shown results. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

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

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a very different Beijing.

He recalls exploring the fields on the city's edges where he discovered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

Industrialization brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were seen as land for construction, not protected zones to preserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I made the choice 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 being investigated by Silva and fought back.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who surrounded me and assaulted me," Silva remembers. He says he reported 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 demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to address this major issue, you must give it your all. You cannot be half-hearted."

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

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He analyzes aerial photos to find the paths created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The aerial views can even show netting setups which can capture hundreds of small birds during darkness.

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

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the fines to punish the crime do not outweigh the potential profits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages to display their birds.

It's a tradition 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.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people about the environment. 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 is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

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

The area alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to false teeth.

We were told that wild songbirds could be purchased in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

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