The day before, one of the squirrels had been considering whether it were safe to climb down the fence to eat the food on the ground. He had considered it for a long time. Going down, going up, waiting, chittering, going down, stopping halfway, waiting, sitting on a planter, going back up.
Finally, I broke my silence and spoke to the squirrel. Astonishing. With that, he went down to the food and started eating.
Then he collected a nut and climbed to the top of the trellis to eat it. This seemed to take an absurd amount of time.
After that, he went off to the front of the garden and I decided I should return to the cats. As I reached the food, the squirrel came running up the path. He screeched to a stop and looked at me. So I spoke to him and he ran right to my feet, collected a nut and went up the cherry tree to eat it!
Of the regular three squirrel visitors, it seems there is this one who is more brave, and two others who other arrive together, chasing each other, and are rather flighty. One of these two does something interesting (it's interesting if you are as seriously strange as me): she picks up the monkey nut sideways, hops forward, stops, takes it out of her mouth and puts it back in longways. Maybe that makes it easier to navigate through dense foliage?
The squirrels now only scream/bark when they see the cat. And the sound of the dunnocks is a reliable guide to the precise location of the cat.
This morning two flew to the honeysuckles and gave their high, loud alarm--cheep. It was quite distracting. But when I walked around their vantage point, there was the cat. Once she had seen me and left, the dunnocks settled.
It's fun learning more about the squirrels and the interactions with you and each other. I'm impressed that squirrels and dunnocks sound alarms against the cat!