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The conservationist's vision darts across vast expanses of tall grassland, searching for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in a hushed tone as they attempt to locate a spot to hide in the grasslands. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, the only sound is the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Snared

Overhead, a multitude of winged travelers, some tiny enough that they could rest in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have utilized the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming insects and fruit. As the year winds down and icy winds bring the early cold of winter, they head to southern locales to nest and feed.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, which is about 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Several of the major migration routes they follow intersect in China.

The patch of grassland being monitored, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among towering rows 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 half the length of the field and held up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a tiny bird was desperately trying to untangle itself, but the more it struggled, the more its claws became tangled.

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 habitat.

Tracking the Trappers

The conservationist, in his thirties, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many sleeping hours to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"Back in 2015, there was little interest," he states.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and established a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held community gatherings and invited the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police discovered that catching poachers also helped in tracking down other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear 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. "But starting from the 2000s, everything changed."

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

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I made the choice back then to work in conservation 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 being investigated by Silva and fought back.

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

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many 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 solve this big problem, you must commit completely. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising covers some of the costs – more than 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 analyzes satellite imagery 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 lines of net traps which can catch scores of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species sell for a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

Although there are environmental regulations in place, Silva reckons the fines to punish the crime 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 dates back to the Qing dynasty. Wealthy individuals would build ornate 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 may not understand they are breaking the law, or grasp that so many more birds had to die in a trap for them to purchase a pet.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with some disposable income, they have adopted the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about the environment. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

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

A separate individual is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He tells 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 by the river 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 bought 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 choreographing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all over 50, had congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

But today there would be no transactions because the police had appeared. They were interviewing the bird owners and recording details. Unyielding, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his