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The conservationist's eyes scan over vast expanses of dense fields, looking for signs of life in the early morning gloom.

He speaks in a muted voice as the team seeks a spot to hide in the open area. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten with the approaching day, the sound of footsteps emerges. The poachers are here.

Caught

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

They have benefited from the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming insects and fruit. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they journey to southern locales to find food and shelter.

China is home to over 1500 bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the world's total – more than 800 of those are migratory birds. Several of the major flyways they follow intersect in China.

This particular field being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

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

A net we almost encountered was stretched across a large section of the field and propped up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was struggling frantically to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

It was a meadow pipit, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its environment.

Tracking the Trappers

This activist, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last decade persuading the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"In the early days, authorities were indifferent," he says.

So he gathered a team who did care and launched a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held community gatherings and brought in the heads of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy have shown results. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to tracking down other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear our goals were partially aligned," Silva says, while pointing out that enforcement is still patchy.

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He was raised in the nineties in a much changed capital.

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

Industrialization brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were viewed as land for construction, not conservation areas to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands receded, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I made the choice back then to pursue environmental protection and I followed this course," he says.

This has not made for an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was under scrutiny by Silva and retaliated.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who confronted me and beat me up," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not brought to justice.

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work requires stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says not many are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to tackle this challenge, 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 donations have dipped because of the slowing economy.

So he has developed new ways to track the poachers.

He analyzes satellite imagery to find the routes worn away by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may rest. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can capture hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a high price," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the fines to punish the crime do not outweigh the financial benefits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some generations in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are committing a wildlife crime, or understand that numerous birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a caged bird.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have adopted the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was little opportunity to raise awareness about the environment. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with chirping songbirds.

Another man 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 nearly 1900 yuan.

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

The path alongside the water 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 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 group of elderly ladies were choreographing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had congregated with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

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