tlauhquecholli.

TLĀUH-QUECHŌL/TLĀUH-QUECHŌL-LI, Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) [FC: 20 Tlauhquechol]: “Also its name is teoquechol. It is a waterfowl, like the duck: wide-footed, chilli-red footed. It is wide-billed; its bill is like a palette knife. It is crested. Its head – as well as its breast, on its belly – and its tail, and its wings are pale, pink, whitish, light-colored. Its back and its wing-bend are chili-red.… The bill becomes yellow…. the bill becomes wide; the legs become yellow…. chili-red….” A detailed description of the Roseate Spoonbill. The American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) might fit as well but is restricted to the coastal lagoons of the Yucatan Peninsula. Karttunen notes that, “QUECHŌL refers not to the color of the bird but apparently to the characteristic sweeping motion of its neck .” This may be relevant also to the motmots named XIUH-QUECHŌL and XIUH-PAL-QUECHŌL, as they “twitch their tails from side to side” (Howell & Webb).
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 11 – Earthly Things, no. 14, Part XII, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1963); Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (University of Oklahoma, Norman, 1983); Steven N. G. Howell and Sophie Webb. A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America (Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, Tokyo, 1995); and, with quotation selections, synthesis, and analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.

njman conquetia teuquemjtl tlaçotlanquj: muchi tlaçoiujtl ynic tlachiuhtli, ynic tlaiecchioalli, ynjc tlacujlolli, ynic tlatenchilnaoaiotilli, yn jten, çan moch tlauhquechol: auh yn jnepantla manj, cuztic teucujtlacomalli = Then they arrayed him in a godly, costly cape, made, embellished, and designed all in precious colored feathers, with the red eye border, all thus edged with [the feathers of] the red spoonbill. And in the center lay a great golden disc. (sixteenth century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 69.

quahpatla[n]que yn atzaqualca yn ipa[n] quahpatla[n]que o[n]tetl tlauhquechol ce[n]tetl papalotl ce[n]tetl xillanehuatl = los atzaqualcas volaron en el palo volador. Volaron como dos tlauhquechol, una mariposa y un xillanehuatl. (ca. 1582, Mexico City)
Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 184–185.

temoque otetl tlauhquecholtin yhuan huel mieque tozneneme cochome = bajaron dos flamingos y muchos pericos y loros (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala and México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 142–143.

un plumage que llaman Tlauhquechol tzontli, plumage de muy preciada pluma, y muy glana ave, que le llamaban Tlauhquechol; es comparada a un pájaro muy pequeño que llamaban en lengua mexicana quetzalhuitzilzil, que le ponian nombre de lengua española y tarasca, sinzon: tiene la pluma muy hermosa, que hace como tafetan, de colores tornasolados, y colores y señores esta pluma en las dichas aves, porque es verde, azul, dorado, color de brasa o llamas de fuego, y le han puesto a estas aves Tlauquecholtzinitzcan zacuan, por no haber otro género de ave grande que tenga esta color de pluma. (fines del s. XVI o principios del s. XVII; México central)
Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, Relación del Origen de los Indios que Habitan Esta Nueva España segun sus Historias, 434.