“But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment.”
George Orwell’s “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad,” first published in April, 1946, is a short introduction to spring.
Good ol’ Bufo bufo; here’s one I saw in Sweden.
Times change, we heat up the atmosphere, and the blackthorn was blooming this year in the UK at the beginning of February.
Backyard and Beyond 
I have seen bullfrogs in Central Park and spring peepers upstate at Bashakill, but never a toad. Where are they?
In my experience: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Doodletown, Westchester/CT border for American Toad. Fowler’s Toad in VA.