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Silva Gu's vision darts over vast expanses of dense fields, looking for any movement in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a place of cover in the fields. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, the only sound is the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky starts to lighten before dawn, the sound of footsteps emerges. The poachers are here.

Snared

Overhead, countless migratory birds, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have utilized the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, feasting on bugs and berries. As the year winds down and chilling gusts bring the early cold of winter, they are flying to warmer places to find food and shelter.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, representing roughly 13% of the world's total – more than 800 of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow intersect in China.

This particular field where we were, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the city skies offer little opportunity to rest among forests of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "mist nets", so thin you can almost miss them.

The one we nearly walked into was strung across a large section of the field and held up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was struggling frantically to untangle itself, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a meadow pipit, a species under protection in China, and an important "indicator species" – meaning if its population is healthy, so is its habitat.

Hunting the Hunters

Silva, who is in his 30s, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has sacrificed many nights of sleep to rescue birds, and he has spent the last decade convincing the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"Back in 2015, there was little interest," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and formed a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held public meetings and invited the officials of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy appear to have worked. The police realized that catching poachers also helped in tracking down other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, while pointing out that implementation remains inconsistent.

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

He remembers wandering in the grasslands on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

Rapid economic growth brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not protected zones to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I made the choice back then to dedicate myself to preservation 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 being investigated by Silva and fought back.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who confronted me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he went to the police but those responsible 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 not many are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to solve this big problem, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You can't do it part-time."

He says fundraising pays for some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but funding has declined because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to track the poachers.

He studies aerial photos to find the routes 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 lines of net traps which can catch hundreds of small birds at night.

"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."

Although there are environmental regulations in place, Silva believes the penalties to punish the crime do not exceed 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. Nobles and elites would build ornate bamboo cages to display their birds.

It's a tradition that persists mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. 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 didn't even have enough to eat growing up. Now with a little money, they have inherited the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Busted

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

Another man stands outside a local market holding a bird cage shrouded in a black veil. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders have created their own market.

The area by the river extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing 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 in a shaded area where a troop of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by black fabric.

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