Yea they can make a mess but spilled food gets cleaned up by the bottom feeders like doves.
That wasn't me on the bird feeder, I'm a good squirrel.
The next 3 pictures are of a youngster that just begged a name, we called him Flower Eater. Hosta flowers, begonias, marigolds (a sq fav BTW). If it bloomed he ate it. Quite funny and a bit unusual since squirrels usually only nits at one type of plant and that can change year to year usually annuals.