Object of feline attention

Jasper the hunk

Lately a large orange Tom cat has been coming into the garden at night. Sometimes blood curdling battle cries pierce the middle of the night or early morning, awakening me. Some of you may know the horrible sound of fighting cats (defending territory). When I go out to chase the orange cat away, Jasper runs inside, sometimes looking victorious, sometimes with his tail and fur along the spine all bushed out.

The night before last I was awakened by soft cries, like those of a persistent kitten, coming from just under my window. At the same time, Jasper jumped inside. Thinking he was escaping from the large orange Tom, I got up and looked out, but saw nothing. I closed the window and went back to sleep.

Then last night, Jasper awakened me when he jumped through the window. He sat gazing out at something and, as I looked up, I saw the silhouette of a cat against the curtains. Thinking it was the orange Tom, I chased it away and closed the window. A short while later I heard the same persistent kittenish mewing and observed that Jasper was looking alert, but unafraid. When I looked out, I saw a smaller ginger cat sitting in the moonlight, gazing up at my bedroom window, gently mewing.

In the dark I couldn't be sure. Was this the large Tom cat (just looking smaller because I was seeing it from a different angle)? And is it that he looks big and bad but really has a high pitched squeak of a meow? Or was it a smaller, ginger female, calling lovingly to Jasper, the neighbourhood hunk?