We're having a super hot summer in New Zealand and there don't seem to have been many butterflies around, until now, but today (7 Feb 2019) I found a whole bunch of Long-tailed Blues laying eggs on their host plant Birdsfoot Trefoil (lotus cornucalatus).
Our butterflies fall prey to many other creatures, asian paper wasps being the worst. The wasps take the butterfly eggs and kill the caterpillars to feed their own young, early in the season, so often our butterflies don't really begin to show until after the wasps have raised their young and are then only feeding on nectar.