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The activist's gaze sweeps over miles of dense fields, hunting for signs of life in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in a muted voice as we try to find a spot to hide in the open area. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Caught

Overhead, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have utilized the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they are flying to southern locales to nest and feed.

The nation hosts over 1500 bird species, which is about 13% of the world's total – more than 800 of those are migratory birds. Several of the major flyways they follow cross through China.

This particular field in question, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the city skies offer scant chance to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "fine nets", so fine you can hardly spot them.

A net we almost encountered was strung across a large section of the field and held up with bamboo poles. At its center, a tiny bird was struggling frantically to free his legs, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

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

Pursuing the Poachers

This activist, does this work for free using his own savings. He has forgone many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last decade persuading the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"In the early days, there was little interest," he says.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and formed a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held community gatherings and invited the officials of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in uncovering other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, noting that implementation remains inconsistent.

His passion for avian life began during childhood. He grew up in the nineties in a much changed capital.

He remembers exploring the fields on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, everything changed."

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

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

"I decided back then to work in conservation and I followed this course," 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 assembled several of his accomplices who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not held accountable.

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people 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 address this major issue, you must commit completely. You can't do it part-time."

He says donations covers 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 aerial photos to find the routes created 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 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 keep birds are now often affluent."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

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

It's a tradition that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says some elderly citizens don't realise they are committing a wildlife crime, or understand that so many more birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with some disposable income, they have inherited the habit and custom of caging birds," he says. "China developed so fast, there was little opportunity to educate people about the environment. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

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

Another man is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He tells passers-by discreetly that his songbird is valuable, worth about 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where informal vendors have created their own market.

The area alongside the water extends over 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 small park. It was easy to find.

Music was blasting from a speaker in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, 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 arrived. 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