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Silva Gu's eyes scan over miles of open meadows, looking for any movement in the early morning gloom.

He speaks in a muted voice as we try to find a place of cover in the grasslands. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing slumbers on. As we wait, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Caught

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

They have benefited from the warmer months in northern regions, feasting on insects and fruit. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the initial freeze of winter, they are flying to southern locales to breed and eat.

There are 1500-plus bird species, representing roughly thirteen percent of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major flyways they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer little opportunity to rest among clusters of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "fine nets", so delicate you can hardly spot them.

A net we almost encountered was strung across a large section of the field and propped up with wooden sticks. At its center, a small finch was fighting hard to untangle itself, but the more it struggled, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – that means if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Hunting the Hunters

This activist, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has sacrificed many nights of sleep to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Initially, there was little interest," he says.

So he enlisted helpers who were concerned and formed a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized public meetings and brought in the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police realized 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.

Silva's love of birds began during childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a much changed capital.

He recalls wandering in the grasslands on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, everything changed."

Industrialization brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not protected zones to conserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands receded, as did the wildlife they housed.

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

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

"He gathered several of his accomplices who confronted me and beat me up," Silva recalls. 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 covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are prepared for 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 devote yourself wholeheartedly. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the economic situation.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He studies aerial photos to find the trails worn away by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may rest. The aerial views can even show lines of net traps which can catch hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"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 environmental regulations in place, Silva argues the penalties to punish the crime do not exceed the potential profits of trapping and trading songbirds.

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

This custom that persists mainly among older individuals 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 were killed in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about the environment. Once adults' values are formed, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a vendor has several tiny enclosures with chirping songbirds.

A separate individual is positioned near a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth about 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders have created their own market.

The path by the river extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to dentures.

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

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a traditional dance. Close by 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 claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his