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Silva Gu's eyes scan across vast expanses of tall grassland, looking for suspicious activity in the early morning gloom.

He utters less than a whisper as the team seeks a spot to hide in the fields. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing has yet to wake. During the vigil, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky turns a shade lighter ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. The poachers are here.

Trapped

Across the heavens, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have benefited from the warmer months in northern regions, feasting on bugs and berries. As the year nears its end and chilling gusts bring the first frosts of winter, they journey to warmer places to breed and eat.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major paths they follow cross through China.

This particular field where we were, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer little opportunity to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "mist nets", so fine you can hardly spot them.

The trap we stumbled upon was stretched across half the length of the field and supported with wooden sticks. At its center, a meadow pipit was desperately trying to escape, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – that means if its population is healthy, so is its environment.

Pursuing the Poachers

This activist, does this work for free using his own savings. He has forgone many sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

"In the early days, no-one cared," he remarks.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and established a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized public meetings and brought in the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy appear to have worked. The police found that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our goals were somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that implementation remains inconsistent.

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

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

Rapid economic growth brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not sanctuaries to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I made the choice back then to work in conservation and I followed this course," he says.

It has not been an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was being investigated by Silva and fought back.

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

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work requires patience and night vigils. Silva says few people are prepared for 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 commit completely. You can't do it part-time."

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

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He examines aerial photos 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 netting setups which can capture hundreds of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva reckons the penalties to punish the crime do not outweigh 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 originates from the Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens may not understand they are breaking the law, or understand that so many more birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a caged bird.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have adopted the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to raise awareness about ecology. Once adults' values are set, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a vendor has several small cages with tiny twittering birds.

Another man is positioned near a local market holding a bird cage covered by 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 informal vendors have created their own market.

The path by the river stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

We were told that protected birds could be bought 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 choreographing a fan dance. Close by several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple 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 claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his