Yes ... one more thing to get in the way: my current experiment in this area is a three-legged camping stool, so I can better watch a clump of promising bushes, etc. for longer. And it both helps the watching and gets in the way (and is a little more weight). I'll persist with it - though perhaps more when the ground is dryer and I'm less likely to find mud to sink into on one or more legs.
On semi-automatic modes - it really does depend on whether the algorithm the camera uses for the settings it controls matches our desires. If it's close enough to our desires, it's a help, if it's doing 1/8000s at ISO12800 it's clearly gone mad!
Though I've a better piece of software, I actually just use Canon's DPP4 for getting the lighting to my taste, but then I only want "whole picture" effects, and messing with the general luminance, plus the histogram tool (setting mid point and end points to match the actual picture's luminance histogram) seems enough to me. I do have ACDSee's Photo Studio (mostly chosen as it's a one off payment, not a subscription), and Topaz Photo AI which would allow more controlled messing, but with wildlife, I don't really thing messing is "right".
I actually use ACDSee to add keywords to photos (and ratings, though DPP4 can do that), and Topaz only infrequently when the photo looks like it might be rescue-able that way.