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Silva Gu's eyes scan across vast expanses of dense fields, hunting for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a spot to hide in the grasslands. Behind us, the vast metropolis of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Snared

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

They have benefited from the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, feasting on insects and fruit. As the year nears its end and chilling gusts bring the first frosts of winter, they are flying to warmer places to find food and shelter.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, which is about thirteen percent of the planet's species – more than 800 of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major migration routes they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow in question, on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – farther in 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 thin you can almost miss them.

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across 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 struggled, the more its claws became tangled.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – that means if its numbers are thriving, so is its habitat.

Tracking the Trappers

This activist, does this work for free using his own savings. He has sacrificed many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years persuading the police in Beijing to enforce the law.

"In the early days, no-one cared," he states.

So he gathered a team who did care and established a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held public meetings and brought in the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police found that catching poachers also helped in tracking down other kinds of illegal operations.

"It became clear our goals were somewhat shared," Silva says, noting that enforcement is still patchy.

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

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

Industrialization brought a huge influx 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 began to shrink, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I made the choice back then to work in conservation and I took this path," he says.

This has not made for an simple journey. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was under scrutiny by Silva and retaliated.

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

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"This is my full-time commitment," 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 covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but support has waned because of the slowing economy.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He studies aerial photos to find the trails 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 capture hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species sell for a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

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 Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build ornate bamboo cages to display their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens may not understand they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a pet.

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

Disrupted

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 informs passers-by quietly 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 path alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to false teeth.

Information suggested that protected birds could be purchased in a small park. It was easy to find.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a traditional dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

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