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The conservationist's gaze sweeps across vast expanses of open meadows, looking for signs of life in the inky blackness.

He utters a hushed tone as the team seeks a concealed position in the fields. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, the only sound is our own breath.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten ahead of sunrise, there is the crunch of footsteps. The poachers are here.

Caught

Overhead, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have benefited from the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year nears its end and cold breezes bring the early cold of winter, they journey to more temperate climates to nest and feed.

The nation hosts 1500-plus bird species, representing roughly thirteen percent of the world's total – more than 800 of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major flyways they follow converge in China.

The patch of grassland where we were, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – farther in and the city skies offer few options to rest among clusters of concrete.

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

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across a large section of the field and held up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a meadow pipit was struggling frantically to untangle itself, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

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

Tracking the Trappers

The conservationist, in his thirties, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he enlisted helpers who were concerned and launched a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held community gatherings and brought in the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy appear to have worked. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, while pointing out that enforcement is still patchy.

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

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

Industrialization brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were seen as empty places to build, not protected zones to preserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I decided back then to pursue environmental protection and I followed this course," he says.

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

"He assembled several of his associates who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not brought to justice.

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. 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 solve this big problem, you must give it your all. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to hunt the hunters.

He examines satellite imagery to find the routes created 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 scores of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species command a high price," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva reckons the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This dates back to the Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that persists mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or understand that so many more birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with some disposable income, they have inherited the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people 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 chirping songbirds.

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

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

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

Information suggested that protected birds could be purchased in a nearby green space. It was easy to find.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by dark cloth.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had appeared. 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