The whirling explosion of wings — the classic heart-stopping flush of a ruffed grouse — helped christen the start of the new season.

It offered only a split-second glimpse as it propelled itself from behind a log, rocketing into the pole timber to the right. No chance for a shot, but perhaps a signal that more birds were around.

A couple more steps would prove this true, as another ruff busted off to the left, into a cut-over. This one presented a brief look as it flew through a tiny opening between tight branches. I issued an obligatory snap shot, with no reaction from the bird other than to continue its speedy flight.

I followed up the shot just in case a couple of no. 8 pellets had found their mark. There were no feathers present; as I searched, a few minutes later I heard a grouse flush wild up ahead, likely the one I’d shot at. Satisfied that my miss was a clean one, I returned to the overgrown tote road, a tiny trail that separated a thick clear-cut with a tract of more open woods.

Though I’d get no more shots that morning, it was a glorious one still. A few more birds were moved, their escape masked by foliage that is still quite substantial in mid October.

This was the first time I’d hunted the area, a state game lands, and the cover was striking. Blocks of varying aged timber provided enough edges to keep a grouse hunter busy all day, or until weary legs signaled quitting time. It was the opening day of grouse season and I didn’t bump into another hunter.

There are certain qualities of hunting alone. There can be fewer distractions; your focus tends to be keener; you can absorb the total experience for what it is, something that goes beyond attempting to gather game.

Personally, I think hunting allows a person to put some important things into perspective, a point of view non-hunters miss. In taking life, the hunter has the opportunity to gain a respect for that life, an understanding that for our existence to carry on, there’s a cost. For at least a moment in time we’re doing our own killing, rather than having it done for us in a slaughterhouse. Spilled blood on our hands fuels reference for our quarry.

Like it or not, as humans we are all consumptive. Hunter and non-hunter alike, at some point in time there were forests and fields where our dwellings now stand. Because we have a place to live, something else does not. It’s neither necessarily good nor bad, but it is how things are. And I believe hunting provides a venue for the understanding of things like this.

Indeed, a person’s perspective, the experiences one has along life’s way, has much to do with the values he or she holds dear and the settings that are most comfortable.

For me, there’s no finer background than being in rural northwestern Pennsylvania during the fall. It’s a place where you can pull into a driveway marked “firewood” — as I did that day — throw a load in your truck, and deposit your cash in a handy metal box. It’s comforting to know there are still places with enough honor that the honor system works.

I greatly enjoy reading books on the outdoor sports, particularly ones written decades ago. A favorite is “Time on the Water,” the tale of a musky fisherman that quit his job, moved from Los Angeles to northern Wisconsin, and embarked on a year-long quest to catch a giant ‘lunge.’

In the book, author Bill Gardner, a former Associated Press newsman, pondered what his old co-workers would think if they knew his current hometown newspaper was “The Walleye Street Journal.” He mused over which was the ‘real life,’ Tinsel Town, with its miles-long traffic jams, Ferraris, and people who wouldn’t even know what a walleye is? Or Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, where folks drove Blazers and Broncos, and wore Timberland boots?

Little crossroads towns like Leeper and Tionesta remind me of the way Gardner wrote of the tiny towns of northern Wisconsin. The outdoor opportunities available around such places during the fall are generous. And the year’s fun is just getting started.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle