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Silva Gu'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 the team seeks a spot to hide in the open area. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, we hear only our own breath.

Suddenly, as the sky turns a shade lighter with the approaching day, there is the crunch of footsteps. The poachers are here.

Caught

Overhead, countless migratory birds, many so small that they could rest in the cup of a hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have benefited from the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming insects and fruit. As the year winds down and icy winds bring the early cold of winter, they are flying to more temperate climates to nest and feed.

There are more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for thirteen percent of the global population – more than 800 of those are migratory birds. Four of the nine major paths they follow cross through China.

This particular field in question, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so delicate you can almost miss them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over a large section of the field and propped up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a small finch was fighting hard to escape, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a meadow pipit, a protected bird in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, performs this duty for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many nights of sleep 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 remarks.

So he recruited volunteers who were concerned and formed a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He organized public meetings and brought in the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion have shown results. The police discovered that catching poachers also led to identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, adding the caveat that the response is not uniform.

Silva's love of birds began during childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

He recalls roaming through the fields on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

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

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

"I decided back then to dedicate myself to preservation and I took this path," he says.

This has not made for an simple journey. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was being investigated by Silva and fought back.

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

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are willing to take on the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to tackle this challenge, you must commit completely. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says fundraising covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but donations have dipped because of the economic situation.

So he has developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He studies aerial photos to find the paths worn away by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may rest. The satellite images can even show netting setups which can capture hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for 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 environmental regulations in place, Silva believes the fines to punish the crime do not exceed the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This originates from the Qing dynasty. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages to display their birds.

This custom that persists mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that so many more birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a pet.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat in their youth. Now with some disposable income, they have adopted the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about the environment. Once adults' values are formed, they're really hard to change."

Busted

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

Another man stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He informs passers-by discreetly that his songbird is rare, 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 people looking at everything from old trinkets to false teeth.

We were told that protected birds could be purchased 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 performing a traditional dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had arrived. They were interviewing the bird owners and taking names. Defiant, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his