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The activist's eyes scan across vast expanses of open meadows, hunting for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a spot to hide in the open area. In the distance, the vast metropolis of Beijing slumbers on. As we wait, the only sound is our own breath.

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

Trapped

Across the heavens, billions of birds, many so small that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have utilized the extended daylight in northern regions, eating bugs and berries. As the year winds down and icy winds bring the early cold of winter, they head to more temperate climates to breed and eat.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow in question, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

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

The trap we stumbled upon was strung across a large section of the field and held up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was desperately trying to untangle itself, 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" – that means if its population is healthy, so is its environment.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, performs this duty for free using his own savings. He has given up on many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last decade convincing the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

"Back in 2015, there was little interest," he remarks.

So he enlisted helpers who were concerned and established a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized community gatherings and brought in the heads of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police realized 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 enforcement is still patchy.

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a distinct era for the city.

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

Rapid economic growth brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This fast-paced development meant grasslands were seen as empty places to build, not sanctuaries to conserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the habitats they supported.

"I decided back then to work in conservation and I took this path," he says.

It has not been an simple journey. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was under scrutiny by Silva and retaliated.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who surrounded me and assaulted me," Silva remembers. He says he went to the police but the perpetrators were not brought to justice.

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires patience and night vigils. Silva says not many are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous 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 fundraising covers some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but donations have dipped because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He studies satellite imagery to find the routes worn away by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' migratory routes and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can capture hundreds 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 quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva reckons the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the potential profits 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. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages to display their birds.

This custom that persists mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says some elderly citizens may not understand they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that so many more birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with some disposable income, they have inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are set, they're really hard to change."

Apprehended

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

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

This offers a view 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 shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to false teeth.

We were told that wild songbirds could be bought in a small park. 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 congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

But on this occasion 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