On the Trail Illegal Hunters Who Illegally Snare the Nation's Rare Singing Birds.

The conservationist's gaze sweeps over vast expanses of dense fields, searching for any movement in the early morning gloom.

He utters a muted voice as the team seeks a place of cover in the fields. In the distance, the vast metropolis of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, the only sound is our own breath.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. Illegal trappers are present.

Trapped

Across the heavens, a multitude of winged travelers, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have taken advantage of the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, eating bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the first frosts of winter, they head to warmer places to find food and shelter.

There are over 1500 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 paths they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow in question, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an refuge 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 "mist nets", so fine you can hardly spot them.

The one we nearly walked into was extending over half the length of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

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

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many nights of sleep to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"Initially, authorities were indifferent," he says.

So he enlisted helpers who did care and established a group called the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and brought in the leaders of the local police and forestry bureau. These small and persistent acts of advocacy appear to have worked. The police found that catching poachers also helped in identifying other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, noting that the response is not uniform.

Silva's love of birds started in childhood. He grew up in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

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

Industrialization brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were seen as empty places to build, not sanctuaries to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands receded, as did the wildlife they housed.

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

It has not been an easy life. One of Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was being investigated by Silva and retaliated.

"He gathered several of his associates who surrounded me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he went to the police but the perpetrators were not held accountable.

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work requires patience and night vigils. Silva says few people are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to address this major issue, you must commit completely. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says fundraising covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He analyzes aerial photos to find the trails created by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The aerial views can even show lines of net traps which can catch hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a high price," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now often affluent."

While there are environmental regulations 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 mark of prestige. This dates back to the imperial era. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous birds had to die in a trap for them to purchase a pet.

"This generation 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 no time to educate people about the environment. Once adults' values are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Disrupted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with chirping songbirds.

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

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have created their own market.

The path by the river stretches for several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from old trinkets to dentures.

We were told that protected birds could be bought in a nearby green space. It was easy to find.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a traditional 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 black fabric.

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