Polly's Multipurpose Window & Shower Perch
$19.95 (medium model)
www.pollyspetproducts.com

The Wingdow Seat
$129.95 (medium model)
www.wingdow.com

AH, THE SHOWER perch. Carefully but firmly press its suction cups against the tile wall of your shower, bring in the bird and turn on the water. Soon your shower will be transformed, as the perch manufacturer invariably promises, into a tropical rainforest.

Polly's Multipurpose Window & Shower Perch fell repeatedly when attached to shower tile (photo courtesy of Polly's Pet Products).

And when you get out of the shower, your bird will compliment you in complete sentences. And then you will win the lottery.

The more likely scenario is this: Within minutes, the thing will come crashing down, shedding its outraged avian passenger in the process. You will be naked, wet and probably mid-shampoo. An angry parrot will be thrashing at your feet. And the perch, for which you paid at least twenty bucks, will be broken beyond repair.

I base this on personal experience. Memory fails as to the models, makes and brand names of the various shower perches that have fallen into my bathtub. All were afflicted with the same key fault: unreliable suction cups. In the end, I gave up and got out the household cement. My shower perch, a U-shaped affair now gray and dingy with age, has not budged an inch in years. Guests, taking it for some kind of cheap-looking towel rack, invariably hang wet washcloths on it.

With this in mind, I had exactly two thoughts when asked to product-test two suction cup perches for ParrotChronicles.com. The first was: "At last. Maybe someone has invented a shower perch that stays on without household cement." The second: "If that is the case, how the hell will I ever get the old one off?" I searched the Web for advice on solvents. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered.

All looked hopeful when my experiment with Polly's Multipurpose Window & Shower Perch began. I had the medium version (listed for $19.95 at www.greatcompanions.com) for conures, cockatiels, lovebirds and parakeets. The perch itself is about 8 inches long, made of textured gray plastic, and designed to fold against the wall when not in use. It connects to a horizontal plastic bar that theoretically sticks to any smooth, non-porous surface by way of three suction cups.

In addition to promising me a tropical rainforest, the PMWSP package boasted "OVERSIZED suction cups for heavier birds!" (My birds, being Quakers, are fairly lightweight but I was nevertheless reassured.) For best results, it advised rubbing a small amount of baby oil or petroleum jelly to the rims of the suction cups. Having never heard of this technique, I immediately assumed that my failure to do this in the past must have been the one factor that doomed all my previous efforts with shower perches. Hope was my companion when I went looking for the baby oil.

Alas. The thing was down in two hours. I didn't even have to turn on the shower. I made two more attempts to mount it on the tile wall, but on the third try, part of the horizontal bar broke off, rendering the perch unavailable for further experimentation on any of the other suggested surfaces. These included the inside of a regular window, the inside of a car window (a very bad idea, by the way) and "Mirror-TV-Kitchen & any Smooth Surface."

To be fair, it may be that nothing can be done about this problem. When you press a suction cup against a non-porous surface, you push out the air inside it, creating a vacuum seal. But a change in temperature caused by, say, a hot shower, can alter the shape of the suction cup. This, in turn, can cause small gaps to form between the suction cup and the surface. In the confines of a shower, air and water can sneak in and destroy the vacuum. After that, gravity takes over. You will hear a crash, followed by much squawking.

On the other hand, some shower perches, somewhere, must stay up. If they never worked, no one would make them? Right? Arthur Barry, curator of the Suction Cup Museum (www.suctioncupmuseum.com) and self-proclaimed "Suction Cup King," insists on his Web site that a suction cup "applied properly to a clean, dry non-porous surface that stays pretty much the same temperature" will stay up indefinitely. So maybe my tile is porous. Or my bathroom is unusually subject to temperature change. Other people who do not live, as I do, in an old house with no air conditioning in a humid southern state might have better luck with a PMWSP.

I would have liked to discuss the issue with the Suction Cup King, but when I called, the King was on vacation. So I turned to my next assignment: the Wingdow Seat.

The three-sided Wingdow Seat protects window moldings (photo courtesy of www.wingdow.com).

Woodwork - and birds - are safe
The Wingdow is essentially a curved piece of transparent acrylic, shaped like the floor of a box with three sides. Mounted on that floor and held in place by thumbnuts are plastic-encased stainless steel legs supporting a hardwood dowel perch. The Wingdow comes in small, medium and large and pet parrots love the thing, Web site testimonials maintain, because it allows them to perch close to a window and observe the outside world. Parrot owners also love the Wingdow, the testimonials demonstrate, because its three-sided acrylic shield protects the glass, the walls, and any tempting window-affiliated woodwork while the acrylic floor protects everything underneath.

The Wingdow is extremely well-constructed and, as the site promises ("quality is all we care about"), is clearly made from top-grade materials. Moreover, it has unusual suction cups in that they actually support the device without detaching and causing it to fall to the floor. I tested the medium model, which remained in place until I moved it to a second window after about three weeks. It's still there. I am impressed. But not enough to try it in the shower.

According to Wingdow's literature, Wingdow suction cups are "the very best available — the same used in industrial applications...built to withstand UV light and guaranteed to hold securely to the window while allowing the user to easily remove the Wingdow Seat unit for cleaning." However, they may need to be replaced every few years (Wingdow sells replacements). But so what? They work. The Wingdow has rubber tips on the bottom, which you are supposed to place on top of the sill for added support. My windows are too low for that, and the thing has stayed up just fine without it.

I like the Wingdow even though neither of my birds has yet used it for its intended purpose. This could be my fault, for luring them to it in the first place with nutri-berries. They now fly to it and face me, waiting for a treat. Still, the Wingdow is a nice idea, it stays up, and the possibility exists that someday, one of my birds will turn around and look out the window.

But it is not cheap. A small one will run you $79.95. The medium model costs $129.95, and the largest sells for a very steep $179.95. Have I mentioned that it stays up?

Laura LaFay shares her home in Richmond, Va., with two monk parakeets, Gaspard and Coco, and is a frequent contributor to ParrotChronicles.com.

To have your parrot-related toy, food, accessory, film or book considered for review, send a request to reviews@parrotchronicles.com.