Expert takes track around island on the first (9)
I believe the answer is:
scientist
'expert' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'track around island on the first' is the wordplay.
'track' becomes 'scent' (both can mean a trace left by someone).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'island on' becomes 'i' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'the first' becomes 'ist' (ist resembles ist).
'scent' placed around 'i' is 'scient'.
'scient'+'ist'='SCIENTIST'
'takes' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scientist that I've seen before include "Eg, a chemist" , "Eg. Physicist" , "someone in laboratory?" , "Is it insects, strangely, the learned person knows about?" , "Researcher - boffin" .)