changes

There seems to be a new sociodynamic deveoping among the colony. Formerly, everyone except Flame and Fancy Dan ate at the usual dish behind the barricade. Flame and Dan have a smaller dish across the parking lot; they can stand behind a chainlink fence (where they know I can't reach them), and I fill the dish and push it under the fence to them. Dan will even reach under and pull it if I'm not quick enough to suit him!
Well, over the past week, more of the other crew have been joining them at this remote dish. Yellow Fellow and Little Joe (and sometimes Bonita, though she still frequents both) now wait at the remote dish and eat there. I substituted a larger dish and push it halfway under the fence so they can surround it.
Meanwhile, back at the barricade, it's Big John, the Black, and Billie Jean. I suspect the Black; although he purrs and headbumps me, he also headbumps Big John kind of hard, pushing him aside (do cats do "passive aggressive"? I wouldn't think so) and he flat chases Bonita away (I've heard sounds of conflict from behind the barricade; he'll chase her under and there'll be banging and screeching for a few seconds). Only Billie Jean seems immune; she still bogarts the dish and pokes everyone away, even the Black. She doesn't come out from under the barricade until she's through eating, and then she does it several feet down from me. So I surmise he's either chasing everyone else away or they just don't want to be around when he starts up with Bonita. I'm not real fond of the arrangement; the remote dish is out in the open; it's not readily visible but four or five cats gathered around it ARE. I wish they'd stay behind the barricade but evidently that's not going to happen. I'm going to look into moving the Black if I can find a barn. Or even a home; he's tame enough to try bulldozing me off balance with that big ol' broad head of his, maybe he can re-learn to live with people again.