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The activist's eyes scan across vast expanses of tall grassland, hunting for any movement in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in a muted voice as the team seeks a spot to hide in the open area. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, the only sound is the quiet of the morning.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Caught

Across the heavens, billions of birds, many so small that they could rest in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have utilized the extended daylight in northern regions, consuming bugs and berries. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they are flying to southern locales to breed and eat.

China is home to over 1500 bird species, accounting for thirteen percent of the planet's species – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow converge in China.

This particular field where we were, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer few options to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "mist nets", so thin you can almost miss them.

The trap we stumbled upon was stretched across half the length of the field and supported 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.

It was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its population is healthy, so is its ecosystem.

Hunting the Hunters

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

"Initially, no-one cared," he remarks.

So he gathered a team who did care and launched a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held community gatherings and invited the heads of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our goals were somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that enforcement is still patchy.

Silva's love of birds began during childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a very different Beijing.

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

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were viewed as areas for development, not protected zones to preserve.

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

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

This has not made for an simple journey. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was being investigated by Silva and fought back.

"He gathered several of his accomplices who surrounded me and assaulted me," Silva remembers. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not held accountable.

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.

"I do this full-time," 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 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 hunt the hunters.

He examines satellite imagery to find the trails created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' migratory routes and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The aerial views can even show lines of net traps which can capture scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva reckons the fines to punish the crime do not exceed 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 originates from the Qing dynasty. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages to display their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens 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.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have adopted the practice of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to raise awareness about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

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

Another man is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He tells passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth about 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an old Beijing where informal vendors have created their own market.

The area by the river stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were shoppers browsing everything from old trinkets to dentures.

We were told that protected birds could be purchased in a small park. The location was not concealed.

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 multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by black fabric.

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