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Silva Gu's eyes scan across miles of open meadows, looking for any movement in the inky blackness.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a concealed position in the fields. In the distance, the vast metropolis of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only our own breath.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Snared

In the skies above us, countless migratory birds, many so small that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the long summer days in northern regions, feasting on bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the first frosts of winter, they are flying to warmer places to breed and eat.

China is home to 1500-plus bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow intersect in China.

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

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so thin you can barely see them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over a large section of the field and propped up with wooden sticks. At its center, a small finch was fighting hard to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

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

Hunting the Hunters

Silva, who is in his 30s, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many nights of sleep to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last decade persuading the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"In the early days, there was little interest," he states.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and formed a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized community gatherings and invited the leaders of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, adding the caveat 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 remembers wandering in the fields on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

Rapid economic growth brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered areas for development, not conservation areas to conserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the wildlife they housed.

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

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

"He assembled several of his accomplices who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he went to the police but the perpetrators were not brought to justice.

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands patience and night vigils. Silva says few people are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to address this major issue, 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 a year – but support has waned because of the slowing economy.

So he has adopted new ways to hunt the hunters.

He studies satellite imagery to find the paths worn away by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' migratory routes 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 at night.

"Certain prized species sell for a premium," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now often affluent."

Although there are environmental regulations in place, Silva argues the penalties to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says some elderly citizens may not understand they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"This generation didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're really hard to change."

Busted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a vendor has several tiny enclosures with tiny twittering birds.

A separate individual stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage covered by a black veil. He tells passers-by discreetly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

The path alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing everything from old trinkets to dentures.

We were told that protected birds could be bought in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

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

But on this occasion there would be no transactions because the police had arrived. 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