For those who never operated a thermal, it may come to a surprise how familiar objects appear unrecognizable.
That is also due to the way they operate. They often show relative temperature differences rather than absolute values.
Birds don't have a lot of blood circulation in the wings. So depending on the background the wings are colder than the core body, and they will appear as white blobs flying through the sky. And yes I'm a white-hot person. Black-hot people are insane.
I can try to upload some thermal footage of flying birds if you're interested. It sure looks like many of those DOD videos.
by fried-raptor