Found it on my son's hair after a 10min visit to our veggies garden. My guess is that it might be a tick but we are not in an area of lime disease and although it's an open, rather unkept, field the only mammals I see around are 2-3 stray(?) cats.
The photo was done using a stereoscope+smartphone. The dark lines underneath are .4 to .5 mm.
Any pointers would be welcome.
Might be a Red Spider Mite?
I appreciate that you are considering other options but, it's a tick. What kind of tick though, I have no idea.
I am no tick expert, so will happily defer to your judgement 😄
Thankfully, OP is not in a Lyme disease area, which hopefully reduces the risk of a bad outcome.