Not too shabby for the first day. Our small group of volunteers saw four out of the Big Five animals of Africa on our first day during two separate game drives.

We started our game drive at 5:30 a.m. Kayla, our ranger, with her encyclopedic mind and charismatic South African accent, drove the Land Rover “jeep” into the brush as the sun was rising. In the distance, a bird sang loud and clear. After repeating the name of the bird three times and still unable to get me to understand, she finally said: “It’s Zazu from Lion King.”

That’s not the first time during the day I thanked the makers of that film.

Within 40 minutes Kayla stopped the jeep (you auto purists, notice the lower case on jeep) in front of two female white rhinos, a 10-year-old and 2-year-old — both with stubs for horns. They, like all rhinos in the thousands and thousands of acres that make up this reserve, have been dehorned to discourage poaching. Kayla, who has been present at some of the dehorning events, calls the process “sad.” But she says, they grow back. Like very slow-growing fingernails.

One of the volunteers is making notes on the clipboard about the rhino encounter. Later, his notes will be entered into the computer where eventually they’ll go to head game warden. (More about that later.)

Kayla’s radio crackles and we’re off to find two lions. She handles that 8-person jeep like it’s a two-seater Jag on Highway 1. No matter that we’re bumping and knocking over tree stumps and boulders, ducking to avoid major branches and a just a few over-grown thorn bushes. We’re finding those lions. And then we do.

Two elderly males, half brothers, on their way out. Call it retirement, call it exile. These gentlemen have served their purpose and they are no longer King of the Pride. Two younger males have taken their place.

Kayla, sounding somewhat like a hospice nurse, predicts their demise and then: “It’s a lonely life, being a male lion.”

Before long we are sitting in the middle of a grazing herd of elephants. In the middle. Kayla first points out the bull. He is in a “musth” state. High testosterone state characterized by continual secretion of seminal fluid and urine as well as a long tear running down the side of his face, which is a secretion from his temporin gland. He is very desirable and sought after in this state. Female elephants in oestrus will throw themselves at him, Kayla explains. “They’ll back up right into his face.”

How long these elephants live “all has to do with their teeth,” says Kayla. They have six sets of teeth that are on a conveyor belt-like system. The new ones push the old ones out. Teeth and tusks are everything for survival. Fortunately, the reserve has a good number of elephants, 54 total in four different herds. And on the whole, they are not poached as the rhinos are.

Later in the day, we saw another large herd. This one included a two-year-old juvenile. They moved pass our jeep in slow, deliberate cadence. Coming so close to us, we could — but we dare not — touch them. There is no interaction on this reserve.

Closer to dusk we saw three Cape buffalos close to a river. It was getting dark and the brush was thick. But through binoculars, I could see one of these mammoth creatures scratching his underside on a low-hanging branch. It went on and on.

So that makes four. Day one. We seek the elusive leopard next. Oops, superstitious to say its name out loud. Makes them harder to find. So for now, I’ll go with the “L-word.”