On the Trail Poachers Illegally Trapping China's Protected Wild Birds.

The conservationist's eyes scan over vast expanses of open meadows, looking for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in a hushed tone as the team seeks a concealed position in the grasslands. In the distance, the vast metropolis of Beijing has yet to wake. During the vigil, we hear only the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky starts to lighten ahead of sunrise, there is the crunch of footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

Across the heavens, countless migratory birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have utilized the warmer months in northern regions, eating insects and fruit. As the year nears its end and icy winds bring the first frosts of winter, they journey to southern locales to breed and eat.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for thirteen percent of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major migration routes they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among clusters of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so thin you can barely see them.

A net we almost encountered was stretched across a large section of the field and propped up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to escape, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

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

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, carries out this mission for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many sleeping hours to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

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

So he gathered a team who were concerned and established a group known as the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized community gatherings and invited the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy seem to have paid off. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our goals were partially aligned," Silva says, noting that the response is not uniform.

This fascination with birds began during childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a distinct era for the city.

He recalls roaming through the fields on the city's edges where he discovered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were viewed as areas for development, not sanctuaries to preserve.

The change stunned Silva. 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 assembled several of his accomplices who confronted me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not brought to justice.

He has also lost his team of helpers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to tackle this challenge, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You can't do it part-time."

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

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He studies satellite imagery to find the routes 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 scores of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds 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.

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

It's a tradition that continues mainly among retired men in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a pet.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. 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 raise awareness about the environment. Once adults' values are set, they're really hard to change."

Disrupted

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

A separate individual stands outside a local market holding a bird cage covered by a dark cloth. He informs passers-by discreetly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

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

The path alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were shoppers browsing everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

We were told that wild songbirds could be purchased in a nearby green space. It was easy to find.

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a group of elderly ladies were performing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

But today there would be no sales because the police had arrived. 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