Variable contrast of thermal image

[Flightworks]

I've been flying pre-dawn when it is very cool, but the live thermal image is showing areas that are hot which are only ~6degrees C. There is a galaxy of hotspots which make it difficult to spot the wetland birds we are looking for. Also, areas of water are 'hot' white.
I've attached a photo of the screen, note the temp range.

I'm wondering if there is live post-processing of the raw data to show the viewer a contrast of the temperatures on the screen, so the hottest relative temperature is white, even though it is only 6deg?

Also, an hour after sunrise it was cloudy and then the wetland area we were looking at became very 'grayscale' with the warm birds we were looking for becoming obvious white hotspots.

 

[Mr_Andersson]

When using the default auto range it will rescale the colors so that the hottest visible pixels are always furthest to the right on the chosen color spectrum and the coldest spots are to the far left. I think it's done that way to maximize the amount of detail you can see, but I often find it much more useful to set a manual temperature range when you are looking for something specific.

I don't remember the exact steps on the top of my head but if you tap the color bar you can change it somewhere in the popup menu.

 

[jaja6009]

Great advice above. You can also try the white hot with red tint color palette to highlight the highest temperatures in red.

Unfortunately, if the birds are the same temperature as other items in your field of view, you will have a harder time picking them out.
We run into this same problem in Search and Rescue with people.