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Silva Gu's vision darts across miles of tall grassland, searching for any movement in the inky blackness.

He utters a muted voice as the team seeks a concealed position in the open area. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, we hear footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Trapped

Across the heavens, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they could rest in the cup of a hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the long summer days in northern regions, eating bugs and berries. As the year winds down and icy winds bring the early cold of winter, they journey to southern locales to breed and eat.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the planet's species – more than 800 of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow cross through China.

The patch of grassland being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer few options to rest among clusters of concrete.

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

The one we nearly walked into was extending over a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was desperately trying to escape, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

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

Pursuing the Poachers

The conservationist, in his thirties, performs this duty for free using his own savings. He has sacrificed many sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last decade convincing the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

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

So he gathered a team who were concerned and formed a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized public meetings and invited the heads of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy have shown results. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to tracking down other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, adding the caveat that implementation remains inconsistent.

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

He recalls roaming through the fields on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, everything changed."

Industrialization brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not sanctuaries to conserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I made the choice back then to pursue environmental protection and I took this path," he says.

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

"He gathered several of his associates who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he went to the police but the perpetrators were not brought to justice.

He has also lost his team of helpers over the years. This work requires stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says not many 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 solve this big problem, you must give it your all. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says donations covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but donations have dipped because of the economic situation.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He examines 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 aerial views can even show netting setups which can catch hundreds of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a high price," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

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

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that so many more 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 habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about ecology. Once adults' values are formed, they're really hard to change."

Busted

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

A separate individual stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

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

The area alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

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

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Close by several men, all in their later years, had congregated with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

But today there would be no transactions because the police had appeared. 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