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Silva Gu's vision darts across vast expanses of open meadows, searching for signs of life in the inky blackness.

He utters a hushed tone as we try to find a spot to hide in the grasslands. Behind us, the huge urban center of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky starts to lighten with the approaching day, the sound of footsteps emerges. Illegal trappers are present.

Caught

Across the heavens, a multitude of winged travelers, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the extended daylight in northern regions, consuming bugs and berries. As the year nears its end and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they head to warmer places to nest and feed.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the planet's species – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the 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 – any further and the urban landscape offer little opportunity to rest among towering rows of concrete.

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

The trap we stumbled upon was strung across a large section of the field and propped up with wooden sticks. At its center, a tiny bird was desperately trying to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a meadow pipit, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its population is healthy, so is its ecosystem.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has sacrificed many sleeping hours to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last decade convincing the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he recruited volunteers who were concerned and formed a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and invited the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that implementation remains inconsistent.

His passion for avian life began during childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a very different Beijing.

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

Rapid economic growth brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not protected zones to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I decided back then to pursue environmental protection 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 assembled several of his associates who confronted me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he went to the police but the perpetrators were not held accountable.

He has also lost his team of helpers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I treat it as a mission 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 covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but donations have dipped because of the slowing economy.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He studies aerial photos to find the trails created 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 scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for 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 believes the fines to punish the crime do not exceed the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This originates from 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 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"These individuals didn't even have 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 formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Disrupted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with tiny twittering birds.

A separate individual stands outside a local 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 old Beijing where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

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

Information suggested that wild songbirds could be purchased in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

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