Sugar water is a little harder to freeze with a 4-1 water to sugar mixture should be good all the way to 21 degrees, a 3-1 mixture should even be better and still be ok for the Hummers. Do NOT fill the glass bottle to the top, leave room for expansion if freezing occurs. Also you can take in overnight and keep warm and put out early in morning before little guys come out. Here is a link that might be useful: More on sugar water freezing point

No need to reinvent, there's a netting like you imagine using ;) The product you are looking for is available at Lowes, Home Depot, nurseries, hardware stores like Ace - really not hard to find. You can roll it back up end of season and use another year. Here is a link that might be useful: Bird Netting

Sounds like your neighbor might be using tray feeders so the Mourning Doves have been multiplying like crazy. The only bold Robin-sized bird I know with a speckled breast is a Brown Thrasher, but they are shy of people. Note long tail, light wing bars, reddish coloring, yellow eyes From 7-24-08, Birds and mammals on Poppy Mnt From 8-1-17, 2008, Birds at Hanlon Farm There are also Wood Thrushes, but those are woodland birds and very shy. Note round breast spots, white eye ring, short tail, brown color From 4-27-09 Other than trying to persuade your neighbors to switch to thistle tube feeders (why I'm SO glad there are no "bird lovers" living in our area to throw out cheap food and attract trash birds) you might try those new motion detector fake Great Horned Owls I've seen advertised. Here's the lowest price I can see http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Gardener-8021-Defense-Electronic/dp/B000FJRSOW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1245161400&sr=8-1

The deer eat me out of house and home during this time of year. Why wouldn't they? The snow is several feet deep with a hard icy crust on top, and it's still well below freezing all the time. They have already eaten all the berries they can reach from the crabapples, they've already cleaned all the sunflower heads from the fields. Here is food, easy to get to (as long as the dogs are in the house), and tasty. We put out sunflower seeds and corn for the deer, the resident herd (about a dozen deer) can eat it in ten minutes. We feed the birds, the birds and deer empty 10 feeders in two days. To me, it's part of life in the country. I love watching both birds and deer and I take a deep breath and go buy more food. The newspaper recently had an article that February and March are the most critical times for the deer - they are running out of accessible food. If eating my bird food helps even a few of them get through the winter, good for them! There are those who say we should not feed the deer - it spreads disease, and there are too many deer anyway. The disease issue seems to be significant only where large numbers are feeding in a very small area. As for numbers, the hunters do their best to take care of that problem in the fall. As for eating my garden plants in summer - for the most part they stay out of the yard in summer - there's food in the fields and there's dogs in the yard. But, they do eat some of my flowering plants. Again, that's life in the country. I learn what they like less and plant more of that. Or I spray my roses with a repellent. So, another vote for feed the deer. And enjoy them. Look at this lady's beautiful eyes, how could you resist?