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Silva Gu's eyes scan across vast expanses of open meadows, looking for signs of life in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a place of cover in the open area. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only our own breath.

And then, as the sky turns a shade lighter before dawn, the sound of footsteps emerges. Illegal trappers are present.

Caught

Overhead, countless migratory birds, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have utilized the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming bugs and berries. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the initial freeze of winter, they journey to warmer places to nest and feed.

There are 1500-plus bird species, representing roughly 13% of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major paths they follow intersect in China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among clusters of concrete.

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

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across a large section of the field and held up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was struggling frantically to free his legs, but the more it struggled, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – meaning if its numbers are thriving, so is its habitat.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last decade urging the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he enlisted helpers who did care and launched a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held community gatherings and invited the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, noting that enforcement is still patchy.

His passion for avian life began during childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

He recalls exploring the grasslands on the city's edges where he discovered birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not protected zones to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands receded, as did the habitats they supported.

"I made the choice back then to dedicate myself to preservation and I followed this course," he says.

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

"He gathered several of his associates who confronted me and beat me up," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not held accountable.

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. 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 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 hunt the hunters.

He studies aerial photos to find the routes worn away 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 catch hundreds of small birds at night.

"Certain prized species command a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

While there are environmental regulations in place, Silva argues the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a status symbol. This originates from the Qing dynasty. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous birds had to die in a trap for them to purchase a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

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

Another man stands outside a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He tells passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

The path alongside the water extends over several miles and on a typical day, there were shoppers browsing everything from old trinkets to false teeth.

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

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a group of elderly ladies were performing a traditional dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by black fabric.

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