Budgies stolen in midnight heist

Kamo Pet and Aquatic Centre owner John Drummond holds his last remaining budgie. Photo / John Stone

A brazen midnight heist of a Kamo pet store where up to 15 budgies were stolen has left the owners disheartened.

It came only hours after a cheeky thief exited the same store with about $1000 saying "cheers, bro" to owner John Drummond before he realised it was missing.

"It feels horrible," Mr Drummond, of the Kamo Pet and Aquatic Centre, said. "It's really disheartening."

A barefooted man walked into the store while Mr Drummond was with an elderly customer at about 11am on Tuesday.

He took a look in the aquarium near the back of the store before opening the door of the staffroom and stealing about $500 in banking. CCTV footage showed he checked Mr Drummond was still busy before returning to the staffroom, unzipping the owner's bag and taking about $500 more from his wallet.

"I was really engrossed with talking with the lady," he said. "He was obviously just after the money."

The man was quite cheerful and even said "cheers, bro" to Mr Drummond on the way out.

Then a worker arrived at the store on Wednesday to discover all but one budgie had been stolen overnight from the outside aviary.

"There must have been about 10 or 15 [budgies]," Mr Drummond said. "They left one little guy behind so I don't know if there was a disturbance or what."

Mr Drummond stressed he had no idea whether it was the same man who stole the budgies or someone else entirely. Because the CCTV camera did not reach the aviary, it was unclear how many people were involved.

The burglar, or burglars, would have had to jump the 2m fence which had three strings of barbed wire to enter the outside area. They then managed to break into the aviary and used the net to catch the birds.

This would not have been an easy task, Mr Drummond said. He was disappointed by the actions of those involved but mostly worried about the birds.

"It's more, I hope they look after the animals." The store was adding floodlights to the outside area.