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Silva Gu's vision darts across vast expanses of dense fields, looking for signs of life in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as they attempt to locate a spot to hide in the open area. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing has yet to wake. During the vigil, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten with the approaching day, we hear footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Trapped

Overhead, countless migratory birds, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have benefited from the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating insects and fruit. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the initial freeze of winter, they head to southern locales to find food and shelter.

China is home to 1500-plus bird species, accounting for 13% of the planet's species – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major paths 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 – farther in and the urban landscape offer few options to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "fine nets", so fine you can almost miss them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. At its center, a small finch was desperately trying to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

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

Hunting the Hunters

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has sacrificed many sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last decade urging the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

"Initially, authorities were indifferent," he says.

So he enlisted helpers who were concerned and formed a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and brought in the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our goals were partially aligned," Silva says, noting that enforcement is still patchy.

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

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

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered areas for development, not sanctuaries to conserve.

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.

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

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

"I do this full-time," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to address this major issue, you must give it your all. You can't do it part-time."

He says donations pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He examines satellite imagery to find the routes created by the poachers. He charts these 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 catch scores of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now often affluent."

While there are environmental regulations in place, Silva reckons the fines to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens don't realise they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"This generation didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have adopted the practice of caging birds," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with tiny twittering birds.

A separate individual is positioned near 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 extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing everything from old trinkets to dentures.

Information suggested that wild songbirds could be purchased in a small park. It was easy to find.

Music was blasting from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by black fabric.

But on this occasion 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