Local wildlife

The largest, most beautiful butterfly (or was it a moth?) flew into the house the other night. It's wingspan was about 6 inches across when it was in flight, and 4 inches or so when it landed. It landed on the top of the chair and I ran to get my camera and then proceeded to try and get a picture of it. The poor thing was panicking as it tried desperately to find it's way out of the house and would not sit still, making picture taking a bit of a challenge. Finally as it crawled pathetically around on the counter leaving wing dust behind and I was able to get a couple of not very good shots. Then, I turned my back for a minute and it simply disappeared. The next evening, however, we found it, half dead and damp, laying under our dish drainer. It limped out a bit... but I thought for sure it wouldn't survive. We decided to try and get it outside anyway... and sure enough it managed to fly into a nearby tree. About an hour later I went outside and was startled to have the same moth (I'm pretty sure it was the same moth because I've not seen another like it since) fly right by me. I think it was coming back to say 'hello, and thanks'.