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Silva Gu's gaze sweeps across miles of dense fields, searching for signs of life in the early morning gloom.

He speaks in less than a whisper as the team seeks a concealed position in the fields. In the distance, the vast metropolis of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, we hear only our own breath.

And then, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Caught

Overhead, 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 extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and chilling gusts bring the initial freeze of winter, they are flying to southern locales to find food and shelter.

The nation hosts over 1500 bird species, accounting for thirteen percent of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "fine nets", so delicate you can barely see them.

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a tiny bird was fighting hard to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a meadow pipit, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – meaning if its numbers are thriving, so is its environment.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, carries out this mission for free using his own savings. He has given up on many sleeping hours to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years persuading the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

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

So he enlisted helpers who were concerned and established a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and brought in the leaders of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police realized that catching poachers also led to identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

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

Silva's love of birds started in childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

He remembers wandering in the grasslands 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 rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not protected zones to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the wildlife they housed.

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

It has not been an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was under scrutiny by Silva and fought back.

"He assembled several of his associates who confronted me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he reported to the police but the perpetrators were not held accountable.

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands patience and night vigils. Silva says few people are willing to take on the difficult – and sometimes dangerous 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 commit completely. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says fundraising pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but support has waned because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He studies aerial photos to find the routes created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' migratory routes and looks for areas where they may rest. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can catch hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a high price," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva argues the penalties to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits of trapping and trading songbirds.

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

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says some elderly citizens don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that so many more birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about the environment. Once people's attitudes are set, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a vendor has several tiny enclosures with tiny twittering birds.

A separate individual stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage covered by a dark cloth. He tells passers-by quietly 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 created their own market.

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

Information suggested that wild songbirds could be bought 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 traditional dance. Close by several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

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