Bats also produce buzzes when drinking water. These kind of buzzes haven't received a lot of attention so far as they are often being interpreted as (aborted) feeding buzzes. However, drinking buzzes differ significantly from feeding buzzes.

A regular feeding buzz starts with an increase of the inter-pulse interval (phase I) and proceed to lower the pulses in frequency (phase II). Drinking buzzes are most similar to phase I of a feeding buzz, since the inter-pulse interval increases but the full buzz doesn't result in lowering the frequency of the pulses near the end. Drinking buzzes have a longer inter-pulse interval than phase II of a feeding buzz, and in most cases also phase I. Most bats quit echolocating for some time before contacting water and since breathing is inhibited during swallowing, no echolocation occurs at the same time as the actual drinking.

The authors of the cited study believe that the most plausible explanation for the occurrence of drinking buzzes is that this is a generalized pattern used to guide a safe drinking manoeuvre, similar to ‘landing buzzes’ produced by bats soon before landing on the ground. It still needs to be studied if a significant difference occurs in terminal buzz structure between drinking and landing events.