Don't laugh, at my age (old enough to know better, but still too young to care...) I have a hard time discerning between a mite, a bit of substrate, a piece of scale, etc. on a damp white paper towel after I wipe down my snake for a periodic mite-check.
Fortunately a few years ago my daughter got this for her birthday:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resou...9?s=industrial
I use it more to check for snake mites on a paper towel than she does to look at everything else. The nice thing is I can even see the mites in their pre-adult phases, when they're almost invisible. I've cursed a few times because I saw a black speck, which then later turned out to be nothing.
There are less expensive USB microscopes & magnifiers on the market, but I like this one since it's easy to use and practically indestructible.