Emma and Silver are up on top of my window air conditioner. Silver is making the male cockatiel mating call. Emma is arching her back and doing the open wing/writhing around thing she does when I mist her (which she loves).

Are they getting closer to mating? Not that I want them to, but I like to kind of know what's going on.

It sounds so.

Opening the wings is usually more a display of assertiveness than of romance. Does it seem like she wants to encourage him or that she wants him to back off?

It's a puzzle. She looks exactly like she looks when I mist her. I've never seen her do this when she's not being misted. When I mist her I think she holds up her wings because she likes me to spray under them. It's very cute.

He's there, about ten inches away from her, doing that loud call. She doesn't seem to be paying attention to him in any way I can understand.

There's obviously a different reason for her response to misting lol. She might be telling him "don't come too close, buddy".

I hope so!