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Silva Gu's gaze sweeps across vast expanses of tall grassland, searching for any movement in the inky blackness.

He utters a hushed tone as the team seeks a concealed position in the grasslands. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing has yet to wake. During the vigil, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, we hear footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Snared

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

They have utilized the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating insects and fruit. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the first frosts of winter, they are flying to southern locales to find food and shelter.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, which is about 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Four of the nine major flyways they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow where we were, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape 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 barely see them.

A net we almost encountered was strung across a large section of the field and supported with wooden sticks. In the middle, a meadow pipit was desperately trying to escape, 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" – which signifies 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 sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last decade convincing the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Back in 2015, authorities were indifferent," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and launched a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized community gatherings and brought in the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also led to uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, adding the caveat that implementation remains inconsistent.

Silva's love of birds began during childhood. He grew up in the nineties in a distinct era for the city.

He recalls exploring the grasslands on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

China's booming economy brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were seen as areas for development, not protected zones to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands receded, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I made the choice back then to work in conservation and I took this path," 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 gathered several of his associates who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. 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 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 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 – over 100,000 yuan a year – but funding has declined because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He studies aerial photos to find the paths worn away by the poachers. He maps those 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 scores of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats 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 fines to deter the activity do not outweigh the financial benefits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a status symbol. This originates from the imperial era. Nobles and elites would build ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or understand that so many more birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, 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 set, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

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

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

This offers a view of an old Beijing where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

The area by the river stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to false teeth.

We were told that wild songbirds 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 gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

But today there would be no sales because the police had appeared. 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