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The conservationist's eyes scan across miles of open meadows, searching for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in less than a whisper as we try to find a place of cover in the grasslands. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, the only sound is the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky starts to lighten ahead of sunrise, we hear footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Trapped

In the skies above us, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they could rest in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, feasting on insects and fruit. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they are flying to more temperate climates to find food and shelter.

There are over 1500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major paths they follow intersect in China.

The patch of grassland where we were, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so thin you can barely see them.

The one we nearly walked into was extending over half the length of the field and held up with wooden sticks. At its center, a meadow pipit was desperately trying to escape, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a protected songbird, a species under protection in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its environment.

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 take this crime seriously.

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

So he enlisted helpers who did care and established a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He held public meetings and brought in the officials of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police found that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our goals were partially aligned," Silva says, while pointing out that enforcement is still patchy.

Silva's love of birds started in childhood. He grew up in the nineties 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, everything changed."

Rapid economic growth brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This fast-paced development meant grasslands were viewed as empty places to build, not sanctuaries to conserve.

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

"I decided back then to pursue environmental protection and I chose this direction," he says.

It has not been 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 associates who confronted me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he went to the police but those responsible 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 not many are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"This is my full-time commitment," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to solve this big problem, you must give it your all. You can't do it part-time."

He says donations covers some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but support has waned because of the economic situation.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He examines aerial photos to find the paths created by the poachers. He maps those 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 capture scores of small birds during darkness.

"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 quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva reckons the penalties to deter the activity do not exceed the financial benefits of trapping and trading songbirds.

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

It's a tradition that persists mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that numerous birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have adopted the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once adults' values are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a vendor has several tiny enclosures with chirping songbirds.

Another man stands outside a local market holding a bird cage covered by a dark cloth. He informs passers-by discreetly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an traditional side of the city 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 wild songbirds could be purchased in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker under the low trees 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 multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

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