Juvenile begging call and other vocalizations

Most bird field guides describe the spoonbill as silent, at most citing the high, hoarse trill of the juvenile birds' begging calls.

However, spoonbills do make sounds. This can be clearly heard, for example, on webcam images of a colony such as the one on the Nieuwkoopse Plassen at NestkastLive. The spoonbills are even quite noisy. There is a lot of noise when coming and going.

A young begging and other sounds - Source: NestkastLive.nl

Ook

In addition, spoonbills also make a different, soft sound. Researchers such as Ernst Poorter, who used to observe a colony with a shelter, are already writing about it. Poorter describes the sound as ‘ook’ with a soft K. Those ooking sounds are often repeated several times in a row. Poorter introduced the new Dutch verb ook for this purpose. The sound is indeed soft, but the sound of a spoonbill can always be seen. Spoonbills then slowly move their beak upwards and while they ook they keep the beak horizontal or slightly raised and the beak is slightly opened. Florent Lagarde, forester in Réserve Naturelle, Marais d’Orx (Landes, France) also heard and described the sound. When he mimics it sounds like a kind of soft honk where you also could hear a soft huh? To be fit in. Theunis Piersma and Petra de Goeij also heard and saw it when they visited Florent in Marais d’Orx. It has been noticed that spoonbills especially ook just before they leave. The idea has now taken root that these animals discuss the time of departure and the route to be followed. On these images, made with a webcam in Birdcenter Urdaibai in northwestern Spain near Guernica, just east of Bilbao, this ooking can be seen nicely. (courtesy of Edorta Unamuno).

Eating Spoonbills. The first ook occurs in second 0:05 - Source: Urdaibai Bird Center